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Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal that would significantly limit free speech rights at Missouri universities and high schools.
House Bill 937 would force schools to create speech codes based on a widely criticized definition of antisemitism. Bill supporters talk about Jewish safety, but their real goal is to shield Israel from criticism as it commits unconscionable atrocities against Palestinian people.
If adopted, Missouri educational institutions would be required to add the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial definition of the term into codes of conduct as a basis for investigating suspected acts of antisemitism. Alarmingly, this includes so-called “contemporary examples” of antisemitism, most involving criticism of Israel.
Under this bill, the discussion of Palestinians’ experiences, academic findings critical of Israel’s government or even quotes from Israelis that condemn their nation’s actions could all be considered “prohibited conduct as it relates specifically to antisemitism.” They could lead to student suspensions and loss of scholarships, faculty denial of tenure or firing, loss of research funding or defunding student organizations — all while doing nothing to make Jewish communities safer, as the bill claims to do.
Israeli officials and their supporters want to silence opposition and keep the U.S. public ignorant to what the International Court of Justice is investigating as genocide against the Palestinian people. Israeli military forces have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according to the Gaza health ministry. That’s most certainly a vast undercount.
This is why Amnesty International says that Israel is committing genocide and why the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Foreign Minister Yoav Gallant.
If passed, the bill will stifle basic academic freedom on the subject of Israel and Palestine – exacerbating an already alarming trend. After adopting the IHRA definition, Florida began tracking and banning course syllabuses that were particularly critical of Israel. At the University of Minnesota, a Holocaust historian’s job offer was rescinded over his criticism of Israel. At New York University, Jewish professors were barred from campus for protesting the Israeli government’s violence in Gaza.
Among other criteria, the bill would ban calling the Israel a “racist endeavor” and comparing any actions of Israel to Nazi Germany.
In a recent article in Haaretz, one of Israel’s most respected newspapers, an Israeli soldier said about his experience in Gaza: ‘I felt like, like, like a Nazi … it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews.” Under the IHRA definition of antisemitism, quoting that soldier could be considered a punishable offense.
This kind of speech code is applied to no other country. If you want to, you can call the existence of the People’s Republic of China or Canada or Iran or even the United States a “racist endeavor.” You can compare these countries’ behavior to Nazis. With the passage of House Bill 937, only Israel would be protected from this type of criticism.
Like millions of people raised Jewish in America, I grew up believing that Israel was a model democracy, opposed and hated for no reason except irrational hatred towards Jews.
Then I traveled throughout Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. I witnessed a political system run by Israel that reminded me of the histories I learned in school about the Jim Crow south. I saw the segregated roads, the segregated communities, the segregated access to water, land and resources.
Palestinians and Jews, separate and unequal.
I that knew it was wrong; I saw that what I had been taught were lies and I knew I had to do something to oppose this injustice perpetuated in my name.
Even though supporters sell House Bill 937 in the name of protecting Jews on campus, Jews critical of Israel would also face sanction from its passage. This is one of the reasons many Missouri Jews, including myself, testified against the bill.
The real purpose of the bill is to make students and faculty constantly second guess themselves whenever they speak or write about Israel, wondering if they will be punished and if their words will fall outside of the boundaries put in place by the government.
This bill was sponsored by a Republican legislator and passed out of committee with Republican support. For years conservatives have railed against speech codes on campuses, when the codes were designed to prevent the sharing of potentially racist, misogynistic or homophobic ideas. They labeled as coddled snowflakes those who ask to be shielded from thoughts and ideas that might make them uncomfortable.
This bill makes a mockery of their professed concerns. Those who support it cite the discomfort of some Jewish supporters of Israel as an excuse to censor students and faculty, in order to protect a foreign state from criticism.
In recent days the Israeli military has killed hundreds of Palestinian children in Gaza who were trying to survive in tents and the rubble of their bombed-out homes. People are correctly speaking out about Israel’s atrocities.
Israel and its supporters know they are losing the argument with more and more Americans, so they are working to make it harder to speak up. We can’t allow them to abridge our First Amendment rights.
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This post was originally authored and published by Michael Berg from Missouri Independent via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
