New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler introduced legislation to combat antisemitism on college campuses following the widely condemned speech delivered at CUNY law school’s graduation event where a graduate speaker was accused of espousing radical anti-American, anti-Israel, and antisemitic rhetoric.
Bill. H.R.3773, which was first introduced last week, aims to rescind federal funding for colleges and universities promoting antisemitism on their campuses by amending the Higher Education Act of 1965 “to prohibit institutions of higher education that authorize Anti-Semitic events on campus from participating in the student loan and grant programs under title IV of such Act.”
“Many in the Jewish community in New York and across the country were outraged when a student spewed outrageous anti-semitic rhetoric at CUNY Law School’s graduation in May,” Lawler said.
“No college or university should receive a single dollar of federal education funding if they peddle in the promotion of anti-semitism at an event on their campus,” he added.
According to Lawler, who has accused public educational institutions of having become “breeding grounds” for anti-American sentiment, anti-Israel bias, and antisemitism; the Stop Anti-Semitism on College Campuses Act would do just that, as he called stopping antisemitism dead in its tracks “critical for supporting our Jewish communities in New York.”
He also asserted that CUNY “should be ashamed of itself for allowing insidious anti-semitism to permeate on its campuses.”
“My bill will ensure they face stiff penalties if they continue to let hate have a home,” he concluded.
In a tweet from Wednesday, Lawler argued that the Constitution “guarantees people the right to say what they want, but the federal government doesn’t have to use taxpayer dollars to support it.”
In a clip shared in that same post, the congressman lashes out at Fatima Muhammad’s “diabolical diatribe against Israel and the Jewish people,” which he insisted “should never have been allowed to occur.”
“Unfortunately, incidents like this are becoming more and more common on college and university campuses across the country,” he lamented.
Original cosponsors of the bill include GOP Reps. Anthony D’Esposito (NY), Joe Wilson (SC), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Chris Smith (NJ), Max Miller (OH), Tom Kean (NJ), and David Kustoff (TN).
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Bryan E. Leib, the executive director of CASEPAC — a political action committee focused on combating antisemitism in American politics — expressed gratitude for the move.
“CASEPAC thanks Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) for using his platform in Congress to push back on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses by introducing H.R. 3773,” he stated, while calling on all fellow House members to support the bill “because combating antisemitism on college campuses should not be a partisan issue, it’s an American issue.”
The matter follows Fatima Mousa Mohammed, the valedictorian of the Class of 2023 at the City University of New York’s (CUNY) law school, using her speech to attack Israel, the police, and the law as a tool of “white supremacy.”
In a video released by the publicly-funded school, which reportedly attempted to conceal the speech, Mohammed praises CUNY for supposedly recognizing that “the law is a manifestation of white supremacy that continues to oppress and suppress people in this nation and around the world.”
In her speech, she attacks “the facade of legal neutrality” while describing American society as “an empire with a ravenous appetite for destruction and violence.”
Praising CUNY for defending the right to oppose “Israeli settler colonialism,” she congratulates the school for supporting “BDS” (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions), a radical and antisemitic movement that seeks to isolate Israel and describes the Jewish State’s existence as an “ongoing Nakba” (catastrophe).
In a vaguely antisemitic statement, Mohammed declares that on the issue of “Palestine,” “our morality will no longer be purchased by investors,” seemingly implying that Jewish donors to the school might have wished otherwise.
Mohammed went on to decry CUNY — despite her earlier praise — for allegedly continuing “to train and cooperate with the fascist NYPD, the military, that continues to train IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers.”
Critics denounced Mohammed’s speech, with one warning that Mohammed might soon be a judicial nominee to the federal bench.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who also came in for criticism during Mohammed’s speech, responded to the growing public furor surrounding the incendiary remarks by asserting that “words of negativity and divisiveness” cannot be “the only ones our students hear.”
The recent speech has been viewed as merely the latest in a long string of antisemitic incidents on CUNY campuses, with CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice regarded in recent years as a hostile environment for Jewish students.
Meanwhile, the number of recorded antisemitic incidents countrywide has reached a record high under President Biden’s administration, despite campaigning on stopping the rise of extremism.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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