WTH Live: Reps. Mike Lawler & Ritchie Torres Explain How Congress is Fighting Antisemitism on Campus

Following a year of record-high antisemitic attacks and incidents
on college campuses, students, professors, and administrators
need to be held to account. But fighting hate speech in academia
while upholding freedom of speech is a tricky line to balance.
That’s why Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are
introducing the COLUMBIA Act – which would empower the Department
of Education to appoint independent antisemitism monitors on
campuses of concern – and were pioneers of the Antisemitism
Awareness Act, which codifies the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. We talk about
the role Civil Rights Act Title VI protections play for
institutions receiving federal funding and get into how foreign
actors are helping spread antisemitism in the US.


Representative Mike Lawler represents New York’s 17th
Congressional District. Prior to serving in the House of
Representatives, Rep. Lawler represented New York’s 97th District
in the State Assembly. He serves on the House Financial Services
Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.


Representative Ritchie Torres represents NY-15 in Congress. He is
a member of the Committee on Financial Services and the House
Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Before joining
Congress, Rep. Torres served on New York City’s City Council.


Read the transcript here.