education
Bipartisan legislation suggests ‘antisemitism monitors’ and revoking funding for colleges that don’t comply
Bipartisan legislation will be introduced to place federally sanctioned “antisemitism monitors” on certain college campuses. Representatives Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the bill “College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act – or COLUMBIA Act.”
The legislation would have the Department of Education send a “third-party antisemitism monitor” to colleges that receive federal funding and evaluate “the progress that a college or university has made toward combating antisemitism.”
If colleges don’t comply, funding will be revoked.
“My office and I have spoken with countless Jewish students from campuses across America who feel deeply unsafe, purely as a result of their religious and ethnic identity,” Torres said in a statement.
Anti-Israel protests have erupted at numerous U.S. colleges, most notably at Columbia University, where several protesters have already been arrested.
Just The News reports that despite the arrests, protests resumed and the university’s president decided to move classes online on Monday to protect Jewish students. After setting deadlines for the encampments to be removed, the university president backed down each time, saying that negotiations with the protesters were continuing.
However, the protesters said they had reached an impasse in the negotiations on Friday, and planned to keep their encampment until their demands are met, namely that the university cut all financial ties to Israel, according to The Associated Press.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is against the legislation, arguing that it is unconstitutional:
“Some of my colleagues are introducing legislation to create federally sanctioned ‘antisemitism monitors’ at colleges,” Massie wrote on the social media platform, X. “I’ll vote No. Policing speech, religion, and assembly is not the role of the federal government. In fact it’s expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.”
An elementary school in the suburbs of New York City has been teaching a “gender curriculum” to kindergarten children in an effort to promote “inclusion” in the school. Hillside Elementary School, part of the Hastings-on-Hudson Union Free District, uses photos of children to introduce “different identities.”
The New York Post reports that the course includes showing kindergarten students photos of other children which are used to “introduce vocabulary to describe characters of different identities,” including teaching them about the terms “cisgender, transgender, and non-binary,” according to a message to parents regarding the curriculum.
“Our gender curriculum focuses on Hillside’s core value of respect and aims to center discussions on gender identity. The students will learn and discuss that there is a lot you can’t tell about a person by simply looking at them,” the kindergarten level course description reads.
“The students will look at pictures of children and talk about what they notice and what they think they know about the children just from the pictures. Using their observations, we will then take the opportunity to introduce vocabulary to describe characters of different identities,” the school writes.
The “identity” being taught to children includes discussing “gender and the pronouns that you use,” and that “as we learn and grow, the words we use to describe our gender identity can grow too,” as described by the school.
Fox News Digital reached out to the school about the curriculum, to which the Hastings-on-Hudson Union Free District communications team said that the lessons have been in place for several years and are rooted in “Hillside’s core values of respect and fostering dignity for all students.”
“One 30-minute gender lesson is taught in each class one time per year. The classes are led by a certified educator, following a specific set of lessons designed to help students value the full diversity of their classmates,” Superintendent William S. McKersie said in a message to faculty and parents.
“The lessons have been created in alignment with the NYS Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework,” he wrote. The school noted that the lessons do not address sex education or sexuality. The school district said that while they usually have the courses posted publicly online, the gender lesson description has been taken off the website since going viral.
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