Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Sun editorial:

Executive order provides smart workaround to fight anti-Semitism

President Donald Trump has done far too much to fuel discrimination and racial hatred, but on Wednesday he took a step in the right direction.

In signing an executive order that defines Judaism as both a nationality and a religion for the purposes of federal civil rights law, Trump gave the federal government an important tool to fight anti-Semitism.

Under the order, colleges and universities, in order to keep their public funding, will now be forced to treat any incidents of discrimination against Jews as violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VI, which is enforced by the Department of Education, bars discrimination on a number of grounds but does not cover religious discrimination, which led to ambiguity about how it applied to Jews. The order removes that ambiguity by defining Jews as a national group as well as a religion, and ensures that those who are targeted by discrimination have the same recourse as ethnic minority students who are victimized by racism.

Trump’s approval of the order was a bright moment in a dark time for America, and the culmination of years of work by a group of dedicated leaders that included former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

That group first met in 2012 to discuss the rise of anti-Semitism, at which the idea of redefining Judaism was proposed. That conversation eventually led to a piece of legislation, the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which drew support from members of both parties.

Shamefully, however, the bill stalled in Congress recently amid rancor from extremists on both sides.

Enter the Trump administration, which did the right thing by supplanting the congressional legislation with the order.

The Department of Education had already adopted that definition on its own, but the order cements it into place. The department further has adopted the definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The order is critically important at a time when anti-Semitism is staining college campuses nationwide, including two instances when graffitied swastikas were discovered this year at UNR. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported a 7% increase in such incidents during the last academic year, which ended in May.

Critics contend the order is designed to counter the BDS (boycott, divestment sanctions) movement aimed at supporting Palestinian statehood by persuading colleges not to purchase products from Israel or invest in companies there. But the administration says its purpose is to respond to the alarming rise in anti-Semitism on campuses.

The president of the Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella group in the U.S., got it right in welcoming the measure.

“We are grateful to President Trump for taking this important action that not only recognizes but also provides a course of legal action against the scourge of anti-Semitism that has for too long been festering on our nation’s college campuses,” said the union’s president, Mark (Moishe) Bane, in a statement. “Those who seek to use our academic institutions as places to stoke anti-Jewish sentiment are now on notice: There will be consequences for their racism.”

None of this would have happened without that foundational group that included Reid and a number of other key players — influential Jewish Democrats; Reid’s former chief of staff, David Krone; attorney Norm Brownstein, a Jewish community leader from Denver; and Marc Rowan, the co-founder of a private equity business in New York.

After Reid offered the idea of redefining Judaism — something the State Department had already done — Krone, Brownstein and Rowan worked to build a coalition of organizations to push legislation through Congress.

When the congressional legislation passed the Senate but got stuck in the House, Rowan approached Jared Kushner about the possibility of Trump signing an executive order. To the White House’s credit, the administration ran with it.

It was commendable work by everyone involved. In a time of political tribalization and racial enmity, it’s encouraging to see a bipartisan effort leading to something beneficial and long overdue.