H.R. 1007 — Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025

This section provides the short title of the Act as the “Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025.”

This section states the sense of Congress that title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.) prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in federally assisted programs and activities, and that individuals who experience discrimination based on actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics do not lose title VI protection because they also share a common religion. It further states that discrimination against Jews may violate title VI when it is based on race, color, or national origin, including actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, and that the United States should enforce title VI against antisemitic discrimination as vigorously as other prohibited discrimination. The section also cites the White House’s U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism issued on May 25, 2023, and identifies four related policy goals: increasing awareness of antisemitism and its threat to the United States, improving safety and security for Jewish communities, reversing the normalization of antisemitism and countering antisemitic discrimination, and expanding communication and collaboration between communities.

This section makes congressional findings that antisemitism is increasing in the United States and affecting Jewish students in K–12 schools, colleges, and universities; that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism is a useful tool for identifying antisemitism; that Executive Order 13899, issued on December 11, 2019, extended Civil Rights Act of 1964 protections to antisemitic discrimination on college and university campuses and directed Federal agencies to consider the IHRA definition when enforcing Title VI; that the Department of Education has used the IHRA definition in Title VI investigations since 2018; that alternative definitions may hinder enforcement by creating multiple standards; and that the White House’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released on May 25, 2023, frames the issue as a national, bipartisan priority.

This section establishes, for purposes of the Act, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism adopted on May 26, 2016, as the operative definition, including the “contemporary examples of antisemitism” identified in that definition.

This section directs the Department of Education, when reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether there has been a violation of title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.) based on race, color, or national origin involving an individual’s actual or perceived shared Jewish ancestry or Jewish ethnic characteristics, to consider the definition of antisemitism as part of its assessment of whether the practice was motivated by antisemitic intent.

This section limits the bill’s effect by providing that nothing in the Act may be construed to (1) expand the authority of the Secretary of Education, (2) alter the standards the Department of Education uses to determine when harassing conduct amounts to actionable discrimination, or (3) diminish or infringe upon rights protected under any other law in effect on the date of enactment. It also provides that nothing in the Act may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.