Congress: 119 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel
Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).
Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for HR 8476.
Sponsor: Fine, Randy (R-Florida)
Schools and colleges that receive federal funding must investigate and discipline antisemitism with the same rigor they apply to other forms of discrimination under civil rights law. The bill adopts the antisemitism definition from a 2019 executive order, which includes contemporary examples treating certain statements about Israel (such as calling it a racist endeavor or applying double standards to it) as antisemitic. Schools must consider this definition when determining if discrimination was motivated by antisemitism, and violations are enforceable through existing civil rights enforcement mechanisms.
This codifies the IHRA definition of antisemitism into federal education law, making schools liable for Title VI violations if they fail to treat Israel-related speech that the definition labels antisemitic the same as other hate speech. The definition's "contemporary examples" classify several forms of Palestinian-rights advocacy and Israel criticism as antisemitism—effectively making federal funding conditional on schools regulating that speech—which shifts the boundary of what speech is enforceable as discrimination in educational settings.