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The heartless execution of a young couple outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum. The terrorist who used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to injure elderly pro-Israel rally-goers in Boulder, Colo. The arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor.
These headlines, and many others in recent weeks, brought home a growing threat we governors have been tracking with great alarm: A new generation of Americans has been conditioned to hate Jews with an intense bigotry experienced by no other minority group.
It’s time for leaders of conscience to draw a bright line, translating rhetoric into robust action to protect all members of the Jewish community from the scourge of antisemitism.
How did we arrive at today’s disturbing reality — where our nation’s small Jewish population endures 68% of all religion-based hate crimes?
Jews have long been a convenient scapegoat for extremists of all stripes, but today antisemitism has become an elite phenomenon, erupting with particular vehemence on college and university campuses.
Antisemitic incidents across the United States spiked by over 600% since September 2023, a recent Combat Antisemitism Movement study found, with most of the increase coming on college campuses.
Students are not born bigoted. Someone is teaching them to hate.
Indeed, some teachers have exploited their privileged positions at the front of the classroom to propagandize and manipulate the impressionable young minds in their care.
Meanwhile, many school administrators have lacked the intellectual and moral clarity to forcefully counter the antisemitism spilling out into the quad and amplified on social media.
College officials who set aside “safe spaces” and promoted narrow campus speech codes to prevent “micro-aggressions” and “triggers” hypocritically dropped those standards when Jewish students found themselves blocked from classrooms and libraries (or, as at Cooper Union College, trapped within one as a mob raged outside).
Bigotry that would have been instantly and rightly crushed had it targeted other minorities was instead condoned — and even sometimes celebrated.
Let us be clear: No student should face threats in the classroom or on campus, nor feel targeted because of their religion or heritage.
All bigotry, religious, ethnic, racial or otherwise, is wrong, absolutely un-American, and cannot be tolerated.
As governors, we are responsible for the safety of our constituents, especially students in our schools.
To fight the rising tide of hatred, we have all signed executive orders and legislation in recent months to combat antisemitism.
Our directives require public schools to tackle antisemitism in the same manner as any other form of discrimination prohibited by state or federal law.
To help confused school officials, we require student codes of conduct to clearly define antisemitism via the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance standard, and mandate protections guaranteed under Title VI of the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma now designate a Title VI coordinator to monitor, review and investigate antisemitic complaints and incidents of discrimination in public K–12 and post-secondary schools.
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Similarly, Virginia established a cross-government and stakeholder work group to carry out these same responsibilities. The group submits an annual report clearly documenting any antisemitic incidents in the state, ensuring that those affected can pursue the justice they deserve.
Currently, we are each creating or strengthening statewide oversight mechanisms to ensure all reported antisemitic incidents are investigated and remedied. Accountability reassures victims that their complaints will be met with a vigorous response.
We are also incorporating and deepening education on antisemitism and Jewish-American history into our K-12 and higher ed classes — desperately needed, as surveys indicate declining knowledge about the Holocaust among American students.
We have come to see the struggle against antisemitism as a pillar of American civil rights.
Just as racial reactionaries once disingenuously invoked “states’ rights” and “majority rule” to impede progress, leftists today cynically and disingenuously invoke “free speech” to justify the deliberate intimidation of Jewish students — a disturbing echo of attempts to drive black students from campuses even after the law compelled desegregation.
We believe in free speech, but the First Amendment does not protect acts of violence or threats of physical harm.
Yet standing up to bigotry takes courage. Too many school leaders — and state leaders, too — have become paralyzed by the politicization of antisemitism across our society.
We, however, are proud to champion this fight, the civil rights movement of our time, and we call upon governors and state legislators across the country to join us.
Taking firm action against antisemitism can unite all citizens of good will in a righteous effort to restore the American promise for a new generation.
Bill Lee, Sarah Sanders, Kevin Stitt and Glenn Youngkin are the Republican governors of Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Virginia.