WTH Live: Reps. Mike Lawler & Ritchie Torres Explain How Congress is Fighting Antisemitism on Campus
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2024
⏱️ 74 minutes
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Summary
Following a year of record-high antisemitic attacks and incidents on college campuses, students, professors, and administrators need to be held to account. But fighting hate speech in academia while upholding freedom of speech is a tricky line to balance. That’s why Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are introducing the COLUMBIA Act – which would empower the Department of Education to appoint independent antisemitism monitors on campuses of concern – and were pioneers of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which codifies the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. We talk about the role Civil Rights Act Title VI protections play for institutions receiving federal funding and get into how foreign actors are helping spread antisemitism in the US.
Representative Mike Lawler represents New York’s 17th Congressional District. Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Rep. Lawler represented New York’s 97th District in the State Assembly. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Representative Ritchie Torres represents NY-15 in Congress. He is a member of the Committee on Financial Services and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Before joining Congress, Rep. Torres served on New York City’s City Council.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.0 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell is talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on? |
| 0:01.1 | Who in God's name knows what it's all about. |
| 0:29.1 | Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. |
| 0:30.7 | And I'm Mark Thiessen. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome to our podcast. |
| 0:33.3 | What the hell is going on? |
| 0:35.2 | Mark, what the hell's going on today? |
| 0:36.9 | What the hell is going on is you had an awesome event at AEI, which didn't include me, |
| 0:43.2 | but that's okay. You didn't invite me, but okay, you know, I understand. I understand. I can't get |
| 0:48.4 | invited to all your parties. Almost all. You had a fantastic event with Congressman Richie Torres, who's a Democrat, and Congressman |
| 0:56.1 | Mike Loller, who's a Republican, who have co-sponsored a bill called the Columbia Act, which |
| 1:02.0 | is countering anti-Semitism on college campuses and more broadly in our culture. |
| 1:08.3 | And why don't you tell us just a little bit about why you had this event. And basically what we're doing today is rather than Danny and I interviewing a guest, we're going to bring you Danny's event because it was basically Danny interviewing these two congressmen. And it was a fascinating conversation. I enjoyed listening to it, even though I wasn't invited. We're going to forget that. And that's okay. I never let you forget anything, do I, Danny? |
| 1:29.3 | Why don't you tell us, first of all, what is the Columbia Act and why did you have this event? |
| 1:33.3 | So, you know, the acronym obviously is actually meaningless. |
| 1:37.3 | It is meant to shoehorn into the word Columbia because, of course, we know what has been happening at Columbia University |
| 1:45.3 | since October 7th. These two members of the House, Republican and Democrat, both represent New York. |
| 1:52.5 | And so for them, I think Colombia is a particular object of concern because of not just the |
| 2:00.5 | support for Hamas post-October 7th. |
| 2:04.3 | Columbia was one of the first colleges and universities where we saw students and faculty |
| 2:11.1 | come out almost immediately in support of Hamas. |
... |
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