Arizona teachers face personal liability under antisemitism bill covering Israel criticism

Yahoo

5 days ago

Photo by Andrii Koval | Getty Images
Republicans and a small group of Democrats in the Arizona Legislature want to let parents sue teachers for teaching antisemitism, but the measure they passed Wednesday uses a controversial definition of the word that encompasses some criticisms of Israel.
Legislators who supported the bill said it was necessary to address increased antisemitism on school campuses. But those who opposed it said that it infringed on First Amendment free speech rights and would create a chilling effect for teachers wishing to educate students about the war in Gaza and the complicated history leading up to it.
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House Bill 2867 would ban Arizona's public K-12 teachers and university professors from teaching antisemitism in their classrooms, schools from providing antisemitic professional development. And it would bar teachers, administrators and volunteers from taking money intended to teach students antisemitism.
Sponsored by Rep. Michael Way, R-Queen Creek, the bill would also allow students or their parents to bring a civil lawsuit against teachers who they claim violated the law. The legislation would require them to be held personally liable for damages, exempting antisemitism from laws that generally shield teachers from being sued for what they teach in the classroom.
Multiple Democratic legislators argued that this would put teachers at risk of losing their assets, including their homes, to defend themselves against allegations that they taught antisemitism. And it could make them targets of people wishing to use the law maliciously.
Instances of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the United States both skyrocketed after Hamas's brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that left more than 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped and prompted a violent response from Israel. That retaliation has now lasted more than two years and has resulted in the deaths of more than 53,939 Gazans, including at least 16,500 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Reported incidents of antisemitism in Arizona increased eightfold from 2019 to 2023, according to the Anti-Defamation League, but decreased from 2023 to 2024. While the number of overall instances of antisemitism decreased, instances of assault and vandalism increased.
But the ADL has been criticized for changes it made in 2023 to its annual antisemitism tracking that classify all pro-Palestine activity as antisemitism.
In 2024 the Council on American-Islamic Relations received more than 8,600 complaints of Islamophobia across the country, the most since it began reporting them 20 years ago. Nationally, in 2024 the ADL reported more than 9,300 instances of antisemitism, a 5% increase from the previous year.
It is part of a broader effort to falsely and slanderously associate advocating for Palestinian human rights with antisemitism, which is a dangerous and offensive conflation.
– Sen. Analise Ortiz, D-Phoenix
'Listening today, it seems to me that some people don't even want to admit that it exists,' said Sen. Hildy Angius, R-Bullhead City, before voting in favor of the bill on May 28. 'And it does exist, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.'
Angius, who is Jewish, said that President Donald Trump's support for Israel has given her hope.
Trump has long been criticized for associating with antisemites and trafficking in antisemitic rhetoric, including declaring that all Jewish people must be loyal first to Israel. His administration has hired a number of people who have close ties to antisemitic extremists, and Trump dined with Holocaust denier and white nationalist Nick Fuentes in 2022.
Nearly every Democrat who spoke against the bill, including two who are married to Jewish men, condemned antisemitism, but said that Way's proposal was a flawed way to combat it.
One of those Democrats, Sen. Mitzi Epstein of Tempe, proposed an amendment to ban the teaching of various other types of discrimination, remove personal civil liability for teachers and apply the law to both public and private schools.
'This would stop any kind of discrimination from being taught, and that, I think, is very important rather than to single out one kind of discrimination,' Epstein, a former school board member, said.
She added that, because the state now provides significant funding for private K-12 schools through the universal voucher program, taxpayers have an interest in ensuring those schools don't teach discrimination, just like public schools.
Her proposal was voted down along party lines.
It's not clear that the bill even solves a real problem. Epstein said that she had for over a month asked House Bill 2867's supporters for examples of K-12 teachers in Arizona schools providing antisemitic instruction, but none were ever provided.
'I've not heard of any specifically,' said J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who nonetheless backed the bill. 'It's a fair question to ask.'
Epstein repeatedly objected to comments from Republican Sen. John Kavanagh, of Fountain Hills, when he implied that Democrats who voted against the bill must support some of the examples of antisemitism outlined in the definition of the word used in the bill.
Senate President Pro Tem T.J. Shope threatened to kick Epstein out of the room for her repeated interruptions because he said she didn't properly cite a Senate rule that Kavanagh had broken.
'I'm curious which of these six (examples of antisemitism) those voting against this bill people think (teachers) should be able to do,' Kavanagh said.
Way's bill uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance 'working definition' of antisemitism, which includes 11 examples. In 2022, Arizona added the IHRA's definition into state law.
The examples that Kavanagh listed included advocating for Jewish genocide, Holocaust denial and making dehumanizing or demonizing comments about Jews or the collective power of Jewish people.
But Kavanagh left out examples in the definition that helped to spur 100 human rights groups, including numerous Jewish organizations and groups located in Israel, to ask the United Nations not to use that same definition.
Those examples included 'claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour,' which the groups said had been used to label anyone who criticizes Israel as antisemitic.
Even Ken Stern, who helped to draft the definition 20 years ago when he was the American Jewish Committee's antisemitism expert, now advocates against its use in legal matters, arguing that it has been used as 'a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite.'
Listening today, it seems to me that some people don't even want to admit that it exists. And it does exist, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.
– Sen. Hildy Angius, R-Bullhead City
Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz, of Phoenix, said that HB2867 'shamefully' uses antisemitism to attack the free speech of teachers, administrators and students.
'It is part of a broader effort to falsely and slanderously associate advocating for Palestinian human rights with antisemitism, which is a dangerous and offensive conflation,' Ortiz said.
She added that the bill 'discriminates based on viewpoint, favoring speech supportive of Israel's actions over speech that is critical of Israel's actions,' which Ortiz said violates the First Amendment right to free speech.
Ortiz questioned whether lawmakers really wanted to pass a bill that would likely land the state in the middle of a lawsuit questioning its constitutionality. Mesnard said that amendments to the bill had quelled any First Amendment issues — but he also claimed that teaching did not count as protected speech, a notion that Democrats disagreed with.
During a Feb. 18 House Education Committee hearing on the bill, Rowan Imran, a member of the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance, said that her family lives in the West Bank where they must navigate military checkpoints, tear gas and road closures just to get to work or access medical care.
'This bill explicitly states that discussions about Israel are protected, while discussions about Israeli policies oppressing Palestinians could be criminalized,' Imran said. 'Why? Why are we prioritizing the protection of discussions about a foreign nation in American classrooms while silencing the lived realities of Palestinian Americans?'
Imran questioned whether her children would be accused of antisemitism at school if they talked about the experiences of their grandfather in the West Bank or if they talked about the existence of Palestine.
During the same committee hearing, Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, who founded Congregation Beth Tefillah in Scottsdale, argued that chants of 'Free Palestine' and 'From the river to the sea' and 'any attack on Israel's very right to exist are nothing but pure, evil, disgusting and intolerable antisemitism.'
During a December 2023 meeting of the Arizona House Committee on Anti Semitism in Education, Allouche urged members to pass legislation that would grossly violate First Amendment rights by banning antisemitism and Jewish hatred from every platform, including from campuses, newspapers and social media — even in private conversations.
The meeting was held after Jewish students faced increased antisemitism on college campuses in Arizona, following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and its aftermath.
But the instances of harassment that students spoke about during the hearing were at the hands of other students, not teachers. The students who were harassed also said administrators' response to their reports of antisemitism were disappointing.
Michael Goldstein, a retired attorney from Ohio who has a history of writing legislation there and in Tennessee, brought the bill proposal to Way, saying that he aimed to combat the Muslim Brotherhood's goal of indoctrinating U.S. students in the teachings of Islam and antisemitism. The Muslim Brotherhood has little to no presence in America, and there is no evidence of widespread systematic indoctrination programs in U.S. schools.
House Bill 2867 was approved by the state Senate May 28 by a vote of 16-12, with Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the lone Republican who voted against the bill alongside Democrats.
The bill already made it through the House on March 3 by a vote of 38-20 with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans in support, including sisters Alma and Consuelo Hernandez, who are both Jewish and have a history of support for Israel and advocacy for expanding laws to combat antisemitism.
The bill now goes back to the House of Representatives for a final vote on amendments made in the Senate. If it passes that chamber again, it will go to Gov. Katie Hobbs.
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