Would You Believe That Democrats Are the Party Most Committed to Fighting Antisemitism?

By Noah Rothman

Friday, February 14, 2025

 

If you were looking for a laugh today, you’ll find it in an unlikely source: Jewish Insider’s reporting on the Trump administration’s education policy.

 

“Congressional Democrats are raising concerns that widespread layoffs at the Department of Education made at the direction of the White House will hobble the department’s ability to combat antisemitism,” read its pithy summary of a far more credulous Politico report on the Trump White House’s efforts to trim down the federal bureaucracy.

 

Both outlets focus on Senate Democrats’ probing of Education Secretary–designate Linda McMahon this week and their supposed concern that the administration’s firing of officials within the department’s civil rights division could exacerbate social inequities.

 

Democratic Representative Dan Goldman (N.Y.) zeroed in on the growing menace posed by anti-Jewish sentiments in America’s educational establishments:

 

“While President Trump has paid lip service to combating antisemitism, this move demonstrated that he will not take the actions necessary to match the words,” Goldman continued. “If the President truly cares about protecting Jewish students on college campuses, he must immediately reverse these cuts and reinstate these vital employees. Our Jewish students deserve that support.”

 

In an interview with Jewish Insider a day prior, Goldman had said he was concerned that efforts to combat antisemitism would be a “collateral consequence” of the sweeping cuts across the federal government, even as he said he stood ready to work with the Trump administration on an issue he thought was of shared concern for him and President Donald Trump.

 

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Michelin-starred restaurant dessert as rich as these remarks.

 

Democrats had ample opportunity to demonstrate their refusal to tolerate anti-Jewish animus in America’s schools and on its campuses. Even before Israel retaliated for the October 7 massacre, Democrats were confronted on an almost hourly basis with opportunities to make examples of the agitators and vandals begging to be thrown under the bus. They didn’t just pass on that opportunity; they all but closed their eyes to the threat.

 

It wasn’t until April 2024 — six months into the anti-Israel/pro-Hamas demonstrators’ intimidation campaign — that Joe Biden even acknowledged its antisemitic character. Even with less than a week left in her campaign for the presidency, Kamala Harris’s team was still agonizing over how to “validate protester concerns” and integrate that unappeasable rabble into her coalition. None of these undue dispensations satisfied the Democratic Party’s tormentors, but they did manage to alienate America’s far larger population of Israel supporters.

 

Meanwhile, over at the Department of Education, Biden’s assistant secretary for civil rights, Catherine Lhamon, oversaw a lethargic approach to the growing antisemitic menace. Her team of 600 attorneys opened over 100 investigations into antisemitism on campus. Yet, as Jewish Insider reported late last year, “Just eight resolutions touching on antisemitism have been reached since Oct. 7.”

 

Lhamon agonized over “the quantum of harm” that she was leaving behind, but she blamed her failures on the GOP’s refusal to accede to Biden’s requests for more funding for her department. But as even the left-wing ProPublica conceded — in its effort to indict the Trump administration’s restaffing decisions as a veiled expression of sympathy for racism and discrimination on America’s campuses — the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights has a spotty record of actually holding schools and offenders accountable. Even the notion that the Trump administration is somehow gutting the department is cast into doubt by ProPublica’s findings.

 

Of the 600 attorneys at OCR in the Biden years, about “74 department employees, some of whom had taken diversity training, have been placed on administrative leave,” according to attorney and public sector union leader Sheria Smith. In addition, “15 of those workers on leave are from the OCR. Fifty newer Education Department employees were fired Wednesday, she said, including three from the OCR.”

 

“The one thing that is clear right now is we have a complete disruption of the services we provide and are hearing from our stakeholders,” Smith incongruously declared. Presumably, she means in relation to alleged discrimination outside of what ProPublica identified as the Trump administration’s priorities: “getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students.”

 

Whatever you think of those prerogatives, they do not support Goldman’s opportunistic attempt to argue that Democrats are the party truly committed to combating anti-Jewish harassment.