Arizona lawmakers have approved legislation aimed at combating antisemitism in public schools and colleges, marking a bipartisan push to establish new standards for addressing hate-based conduct in the state’s education system.
The bill, House Bill 2867, also known as the Antisemitism in Education Act, received final approval from the Arizona House and now awaits the signature of Governor Katie Hobbs. Sponsored by Representative Michael Way (R-LD15), the measure bars the promotion of antisemitic views in classrooms and on public college campuses, while outlining a formal process for investigating and disciplining violations.
“Arizona’s students and teachers deserve to learn and work in an environment free from antisemitic hate,” said Rep. Way following the bill’s passage. “This bill ensures schools are places of learning, not battlegrounds for political indoctrination.”
The legislation applies to public K–12 schools, community colleges, and state universities. It prohibits educators and administrators from promoting antisemitic conduct or language, coercing students to support antisemitic viewpoints for grades or academic advancement, and using public funds for programs that include antisemitic instruction or training.
Violations are first to be reported to a school or college official, who must investigate and take corrective action within 30 days. Appeals can be escalated to a local school board or the Arizona Board of Regents. Legal action in court is permitted only after all administrative avenues have been exhausted.
HB 2867 is based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a standard also recognized by the U.S. Department of State. The bill includes explicit protections for teaching about Jewish history, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel. Supporters say the measure does not interfere with First Amendment rights.
The legislation aligns with the House Republican Majority’s broader efforts to confront hate and promote public safety within state institutions.“The Legislature has done its job. The public supports this,” said Rep. Way. “Now it’s up to the governor to do hers and show that Arizona won’t tolerate antisemitism in public education.”
Representative Way, who represents Mesa, Queen Creek, and San Tan Valley, has made combating antisemitic threats in education a legislative priority. The bill’s bipartisan support suggests growing consensus among lawmakers that additional safeguards are needed in light of recent national and international events that have sparked increased concerns over antisemitism on college campuses and in school settings.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has signaled again and again that she is so committed to the dogma of the most extreme elements of her party that she’s willing to ignore wide swaths of the Arizona public and veto the most commonsense bills. The most recent is her veto of my bill, HB2868, that would have ended taxpayer-funded DEI in K-12 schools and public universities. She claims (disingenuously, of course) that such a commonsense prohibition will “jeopardize the continued stability” of Arizona’s universities and community colleges. How exactly, is intentionally left unclear. This adherence to extreme ideology by a blue governor in a red state is not unique to Arizona. Kentucky’s Governor, Andy Beshear, just did the same.
DEI—or “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—is the slick marketing name for what is a dangerous, bigoted, and divisive ideology. It’s actually about ideological sameness, inequity of opportunity, and exclusion. Today, it flavors the instruction in our K-12 schools, exerts total control over places of higher learning, and is used as a corporate bludgeon (or “re-education” tool) for employees who espouse ideas the ruling Left deems “out of line.” Not very American.
I’m a Constitution-loving, free-speech believer. Anyone is free to like or discuss bad ideas. If you want to think individuals should be elevated because of immutable characteristics like race or gender, and not by merit, go right ahead. But taxpayers shouldn’t be funding the totalitarian use of DEI in public classrooms. Students shouldn’t have to bend the knee to ideas they don’t agree with or face social shunning or worse.
President Trump signaled nationally that the federal government was done funding this circus and states’ funding was in jeopardy if they didn’t take action to eliminate it. The President is smart and understands—beyond the constitutional ramifications—that Americans are tired of being controlled by a woke, DEI thought-police funded by their own hard-earned dollars. I’ve sensed the same frustration from my own constituents. So, while I’m a first-term legislator, this was one of my top priorities. And we got it done. I held out hope, perhaps naively, that the Governor would sign at the very least out of political self-interest. She presumably hopes to be re-elected. But she once again signaled that she either doesn’t know the state she governs (her ban on tamale trucks, anyone?) or doesn’t care. She has been vetoing with immunity until now with the only consequence being that she is universally disliked on both sides of the aisle.
My fellow Republican legislators and I are holding the line against all the really dangerous stuff she’d like to do. But we’d like to do more than stop the bad. We’d like to make some real, positive, America-first change for our constituents. And that will require a governor who knows (and actually likes) the state he or she represents.
As a father of four, I’d like my children to grow up in a world where they can think and believe what they choose, disagree openly in institutions of higher learning, and rise in their careers based on merit, not race or gender. The extreme Left is clearly intent on taking us back. Next year, Arizona voters will have a chance to let them know exactly how they feel about that, starting at the top.
Representative Michael Way serves Legislative District 15 in the Arizona State House. He makes his home in Queen Creek with his wife Raimee and their four children.
Republicans are searching for ways to “pay for” their tax cuts. Democrats want the rich to pay more tax. Here’s a solution that should make everyone happy.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith is suggesting a tax on the $840 billion college endowments. These endowments will soon eclipse $1 trillion in size – which is more money than the entire GDP of many countries.
It’s high time that bloated and entitled universities pay “their fair share” for the government services they use.
Why not? Their professors forever lecture us about tax “fairness,” but the schools where they teach a few hours a week for their munificent salaries are the very embodiment of mostly-white “privilege.” They are are the richest institutions in the world that go untaxed.
The cost of this leakage to the tax base is going to grow exponentially as this generation of billionaires (Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg and others) pass on trillions of dollars – much of it will enter into the vaults of the universities. These are capital gains that have NEVER been taxed – and never will be.
Why is this a problem?
A good and just tax system has a broad base – so everyone pays – but a low rate so the tax system doesn’t discourage, work, saving and investment. This means no loopholes and carve outs that allow the rich to keep their fortunes out of reach of the tax man.
What makes the college endowment scam even worse is that the preponderance of the dollars don’t go to small colleges or community colleges, but rather the Harvards, Yales, Stanfords and Princetons that are already layered with gold and service the elite of society.
It makes no sense that millionaires and billionaires can make seven, eight and even nine- figure donations to their Alma mater and these funds escape the taxes that all the rest of us pay.
It’s even worse than that. Colleges pay almost no income taxes and generally avoid paying property taxes even though their vast tracts of valuable land are in or near struggling inner cities.
The universities openly boast to their donor base: contribute to us and you can avoid paying the estate tax and capital gains tax on your billions. Why aren’t liberals offended by this tax escape hatch?
I have no problem with a deduction for legitimate charities like soup kitchens and homeless shelters and orphanages. But Northwestern and Stanford need tax breaks? Has anyone been to their glitzy campuses.
There are at least a dozen schools bulging with $10 billion endowments and scores more with more than $1 billion. We should call these schools Loophole U.
What public purpose is advanced by these storehouses of wealth?
Harvard’s near $50 billion endowment is so large that the school could charge free tuition to every student from now until kingdom come – and still not run out of money. Yet Harvard still charges $100,000 a year for tuition and room and board.
But this is the real sin of this unworthy tax loophole. Even with these giant endowments, college tuitions have been rising at two to three times the rate of inflation. The argument that tax-free donations make colleges more affordable has proven to be patently false. The bigger the endowment the more the schools charge students and their parents – and taxpayers.
One of the best ways to help inner cities would be to require all universities (and hospitals) to pay property taxes. This would broaden the tax base in poor cities where nonprofits have grabbed the most valuable real estate. Instead of chasing people out of the cities like Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York with exorbitant taxes, dinging the big U down the street would allow cities to CUT their taxes for everyone else.
By the way, colleges and hospitals make use of city services even more than homeowners and mom and pop businesses do. Why should they not pay for these services?
Richard Vedder a famous economist at the University of Ohio has noted that “one of the most regressive policies in the tax code is the subsidies to the billion-dollar universities. This only Makes the Rich, richer.”
In a famous scene in the movie Animal House, Dean Wormer lectures to one of the students who is facing expulsion: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
Ironically, that could describe more than 100 overly-endowed universities today that are more like investment houses that happen to have classrooms and students roaming around. Colleges need to pay their fair share, and the revenues should be used to help pay for the Trump tax cuts – which benefit everyone. That sounds fair to me.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.
The Arizona Senate passed a bill requiring public entities — the meaning of which was expanded to include state universities and community college districts — to divest from companies boycotting Israel.
Specifically, SB1250 would require public entities to take action within three months of the state treasurer releasing its restricted company list, a record of companies that boycott Israel. As AZ Free News reported last September, Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced that the state wouldn’t invest funds in the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s for its Israel boycott, which violated state law. Furthermore, under SB1250 all public entities would also be required to publish a list of investments sold, redeemed, divested, or withdrawn on its website annually. Those public entities would be indemnified and held harmless for divesting from the companies.
About half of the Senate Democrats voted against the bill: Assistant Minority Leader Lupe Contreras (D-Avondale), Minority Whip Martin Quezada (D-Glendale) and State Senators Sally Ann Gonzales (D-Tucson), Theresa Hatathlie (D-Coal Mine Canyon), Lisa Otondo (D-Yuma), and Raquel Teran (D-Phoenix).
The remainder of the Senate Democrats expressed support or opted not to vote at all. Minority Leader Rebecca Rios (D-Phoenix), Minority Whip Victoria Steele (D-Tucson), and State Senators Lela Alston (D-Phoenix), Sean Bowie (D-Chandler), Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita), and Christine Marsh (D-Phoenix) voted for the bill; State Senators Juan Mendez (D-Tempe) and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson) didn’t vote.
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, State Representative David Gowan (R-Sierra Vista) criticized the constituents, several of whom were college students, that claimed the state of Israel has engaged in an “apartheid regime” against the Palestinians.
“I know what real history is, and you want to talk about apartheid let’s talk about Hitler and the Jews and the Nazis back in Germany,” said Gowan. “This movement is just another attack on the Jewish society. I mean you see it throughout history itself. It’s a horrible situation that we have to reteach, reteach, reteach because we forget about our past. But remember when you forget the past, you’re gonna repeat it. We want to stop this now so we don’t repeat our past.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
