Missouri Considers Passing Legislation to Restrict Free Speech Rights in Schools Pt. 1
Should the state of Missouri brand as antisemitic teachers, students or anyone at any public school in Missouri – Kindergarten through university – who present critical and accurate information about the nature of the State of Israel? Should there be penalties for presenting a narrative in public educational settings that is empathetic to the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice? Should the state of Missouri submit to a campaign being coordinated in conjunction with the Israeli government to abridge our First Amendment rights?
These are the issues that are at stake in the debate over Representative George Hruza’s (R – Des Peres) House Bill 2061, which had a hearing in the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee on Monday, January 12. The hearing can be watched here and here. If passed, the bill would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism into codes of conduct for Missouri’s public universities and elementary and secondary schools. The main problem with the definition is the contemporary examples, of which seven out of eleven reference the state of Israel. The three examples that are most problematic to codify into law as “antisemitic” are these:
• “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
• “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”
• “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
During my testimony against the bill, I went through these examples. I cited a 2025 article in Haaretz, one of Israel’s most respected newspapers, where an Israeli soldier said this 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, by quoting that soldier, I could be considered antisemitic.
I pointed out that according to the most respected human rights organizations on Earth, Israel is not a democratic nation – it is an apartheid state, where half the people under Israeli control do not get a vote, and Jews have superior rights to Palestinian throughout. What is the purpose of codifying into Missouri law that a foreign state is democratic? If one disagrees with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and thinks that it is democratic now, can we be sure that it will be in the future? Who gets to determine what a double standard is? Am I antisemitic for quoting these human rights organizations?
I then told a story that was told to me by one of the founders of the State of Israel, where he described the violent manner in which his family and other Jews created his kibbutz by clearing Palestinians off of the land to make room for Jewish settlement. He told me that this was the method of almost all earlier Zionist settlements in Palestine, creating the Jewish settlements on land from which the State of Israel would be formed in 1948. I then pointed out to committee members that, to me, this is a racist endeavor. Under the proposed law, I would be legally branded antisemitic for presenting this story in a classroom.
David Soffer, Director of State Engagement for the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), testifying in favor of the bill, agreed with me that, according to the bill, my testimony was antisemitic. He stated, referring to my testimony:
“So the idea that there’s this component in the spread of that, the fact that (Israel) is a racist endeavor and it is not a democracy, is just laughable. But at the end of the day, I support his ability to say it, if you’d like to, because that’s the beauty of freedom of speech. But if he continues to use that language and incite that into then creating action that intimidates or assaults our community, that’s when it becomes a problem. That’s what this bill addresses. That’s why it’s critical.”
At no time during my testimony did I say anything demeaning of the Jewish religion or bigoted concerning the Jewish ethnicity or cultural heritage. I am a Jew myself – one who Soffer apparently does not see as part of “our community”. He was the second witness, one of the bill’s principal proponents, and he directly said that the bill is critical because it would brand objectively non-bigoted speech about Israel that he disagrees with as antisemitic.
He wasn’t the only one. One witness in favor of the bill said she felt intimidated by hearing Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza described as a genocide. According to a statement by the bill sponsor on the floor of the Missouri House last year, agreeing with the United Nations by calling Israel’s ongoing military actions a genocide, or accurately calling Israel an apartheid state, are antisemitic statements. A high school student testifying in support of the bill said that “Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are essentially the same.”
Supporters of the bill let us know clearly that they wish to classify and legally codify large categories of non-bigoted speech critical of Israel as “antisemitic”. A good definition of anti-Palestinian racism has been created – it is in direct contrast with some of the “contemporary examples” of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. For example, refusing to recognize Israel as “a racist endeavor” can be seen as “denying the Nakba”. Legally classifying in statute that Israel is a “democratic nation” can be seen as “erasing the human rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians”.
In a real way, House Bill 2061 forces one to choose between being an “antisemite” (as defined by the bill) and being an anti-Palestinian bigot. It would give comfort to Jewish supporters of Israel who feel uncomfortable seeing and hearing the Palestinian narrative about the land they love. Meanwhile, Palestinians get no such shield from the Israeli narrative about the land they love, and they could be legally branded as antisemitic for presenting their own narrative.
Similar rules concerning discrimination and harassment are not applied to any other nation. You can compare contemporary Iranian policy to that of Nazis. You can call China or even our own country a “racist endeavor”. Only with Israel, if this passes, would such statements legally brand you as a bigot at educational institutions.
It is for these reasons that the use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism applied to public schools in a manner similar to that proposed in House Bill 2061 is presently being challenged in a federal court in Texas on first amendment grounds as “impermissible viewpoint discrimination”.
(In the second part the author will explain the links between the “Combat Antisemitism Movement”, the State of Israel and the drafting of House Bill 2061, as well as the way in which House Bill 2061, if passed, would restrict free speech rights in Missouri schools).
