New York congressman Mike Lawler (R., N.Y.) responded to CUNY Law School hosting an antisemitic graduation speaker by introducing legislation to pull federal funding from colleges that “authorize antisemitic events on campus,” according to Fox. Said universities would be prohibited from participating in student-loan and grant programs.
Lawler said CUNY would “face stiff penalties if they continue to let hate have a home,” adding that “CUNY should be ashamed of itself for allowing this ridiculous antisemitism to permeate on campus. . . . Stopping antisemitism dead in its track is critical for supporting our Jewish communities in New York.”
Lawler is not alone in his criticism of the graduation speaker. Fatima Mohammed is a CUNY law student-activist who connected Israel to a global struggle against white supremacy and colonialism in her speech, saying: “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking the funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs.”
Mohammed was elected to speak by her peers in the graduating class, and referred to a vague “empire with a ravenous appetite for destruction and violence” upheld by systems of oppression, which her fellow law graduates were becoming equipped to battle. She celebrated CUNY Law School’s passing and endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel by students and teachers alike in the fight against (Jewish) imperialism and settler-colonialism. Historically, BDS has promoted the “Mapping Project,” which identified the locations of local supporters of “the colonization of Palestine” (Jewish community centers and the like), and its social- media pages have attacked Judaism as a Satanic cult, calling for an end to the Jewish state.
Lawler’s “Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act,” would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to add that an institution cannot “authorize, facilitate, provide funding for, or otherwise support” antisemitic campus events, using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The definition includes examples of anti-Israel bigotry such as denyings Jews the right to self-determination, applying double standards to Israel’s behavior, and likening Israel to the Nazi regime. It has faced backlash from progressives, who pressured the Biden administration to reject the definition in its national antisemitism strategy.
CUNY has released a statement calling Mohammed’s remarks “hate speech,” not to be confused with free speech, to which the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression responded that the speech was protected by the First Amendment despite its offensive nature. As a public institution bound by the First Amendment, CUNY may not be able to suppress students like Mohammed.
However, Lawler’s legislation still speaks volumes. Its basic premise is that antisemitism, defined by the mainstream IHRA, is not acceptable, executing this premise by prohibiting federally funded institutions from sanctioning antisemitic events. The legislation is only two pages long, but would put an end to much anti-Israel programming on campus because said programming is antisemitic, often characterized by vocal support for terror and antisemitic tropes.