“I want members to vote against this bill. No American college is boycotting Israel, so this bill tries to fix a problem that does not exist. It also threatens free speech and academic freedom.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today, we find ourselves here, again, purportedly to address anti-Semitism in American higher education. While we should be able to agree that there is no place in higher education for anti- Semitism, the fact is my colleagues on the other side have been curiously quiet, or selectively quiet, about addressing anti-Semitism when it actually does occur. Recall when President Trump declared that there were fine people on both sides when a bunch of White supremacists and their Unite the Right rally marched on the University of Virginia’s campus chanting: ``Jews will not replace us.’’ My colleagues on the other side were also silent as numerous reports regarding chapters of the College Republicans openly promoted their hated of Jewish people among other groups. All the while this has been going on, my colleagues have not told the President to stop firing lawyers at the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education, the agency responsible for investigating claims of anti-Semitism in education. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are certainly mum about how this administration is dismissing Title VI disparate impact analysis, the very tool necessary to address practices and policies that may appear facially neutral but, in fact, discriminate against protected classes under the law. I have not heard them comment on the whistleblower allegations, and many investigations into anti-Semitism on college campuses, led by the Department of Justice’s Anti-Semitism Task Force, were based not on fact patterns or legal analysis but political priorities. With that said, we have the bill before us, the so-called Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, which would amend the Higher Education Act by imposing new conditions on colleges and universities that receive higher education funding. Under the bill, institutions receiving Title IV Federal student aid would be legally required to certify that they are not engaged in a nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel. I will begin with an important distinction: there is a difference between actions, or views of students, or even recognized student organizations and the official policy of the colleges and universities they attend. Students have the right to express their political views, but that does not mean that their university has adopted those views, such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. We have yet to see a single college or university in the United States adopt the BDS movement or institutional boycott policies contemplated in the bill. Simply put, the bill does not address any ongoing or existing higher education policy boycotting Israel. Nonetheless, this would create new Federal requirements intended to prevent institutions from adopting such policies in the future. Moreover, as we examine the bill, Members should be careful to consider how these Federal requirements would operate in practice, the potential of negative effect on institutions receiving Federal funds, and whether the bill is misusing the power that we have from the Constitution’s Spending Clause to illegally sanction First Amendment- protected speech, particularly those of students. As written, the bill presents serious First Amendment problems and improperly limits academic freedom. I had hoped these problems could have been resolved before we got to the floor, but they weren’t, so I will be opposing the bill. For these reasons, I ask Members to vote ``no,’’ and I reserve the balance of my time.”

“I oppose this bill. It attacks free speech and academic freedom by taking away student aid from colleges that boycott Israel.”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill is an attack on free speech and academic freedom, all in the name of defending a genocidal apartheid state. While the Trump administration is stripping universities of their funding, deporting international students, and pressuring universities to shut down their Black and African-American studies departments, Congress is voting today to force universities to pledge their loyalty to what? To a foreign government. That is right. Support the Israeli Government and their war crimes or lose Federal student aid. Boycotts are protected free speech and an important tool for social change, from the civil rights movement to today. Academic boycotts had helped bring down the apartheid state in South Africa, as well as abolish segregation right here at home. This is not about protecting our Jewish neighbors because many of the boycotts and the divestment movements on campuses are led by Jewish students who were yelling: Not in our name. Do you know what this is about? I will show you. This is about protecting an image like this from Israel’s National Security Minister this week. This is what he put up on social media, showing the fate that he has planned for the Palestinian people. What is this? This is an image of Palestinians walking into a gas chamber. This is what students are boycotting. Yet, here we are, punishing them for speaking out against this, speaking out against ethnic cleansing, genocide, and bombings of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. This bill is a clear assault on higher education for millions of working-class students who depend on Federal student aid to get an education. A vote for this bill is a betrayal of those promising young students, denying them the right to an education. Why? Because they want to save lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity. The Trump administration is committed to dismantling higher education and public education in our country. We all see it, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. First, it is a ban on boycotting an apartheid government state, and then it is going to be a ban on divesting from fossil fuels, or maybe teachers will be banned based on what teachers are teaching now. We need to stand against this attack on academic freedom and stand up for students. They are doing what is right in our history, and I am not going to wait a decade for people to apologize for it, because they are trying to save lives. It is their constitutional right to be able to boycott and run campaigns that are peaceful and saying: Enough is enough. Not with our dime, and not in our name.”

“I want the House to vote against this bill. It takes away federal college aid from schools and students if a university boycotts Israel or settlements in the West Bank. Boycotts are a form of free speech protected by the Constitution. This bill hurts American students to protect actions by a foreign government.”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bad idea. It tramples on the rights of Americans in order to protect a foreign government from the consequences of its own actions. Let me give you some context. The West Bank is currently experiencing the worst year of settler violence ever recorded. Israeli settlers have committed violence, terrorism, and many other things against Palestinians, with the goal of driving them out of the lands they have lived in for generations. It is an ethnic cleansing. They have assaulted and killed Palestinian Americans and laid siege to their homes. The Israeli Government has turned a blind eye to this violence and, in many cases, has actively supported it, protecting the criminals and not the victims. The same government has orchestrated a record expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, a violation of international law and a crime against the Palestinians who live there. Americans see this. The world sees this. Yet, what is the priority of our House of Representatives right now? It is not to stop the violence, not to stop the displacement, and not to protect the children. The priority of this House today is a bill that threatens to take Federal student aid away from American citizens and to protect this activity in these settlements. Don’t let anyone convince you that this bill is about anti-Semitism or even just about Israel. The bill’s language is written to include Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. It is in defense of an illegal act by a foreign government, and the victims will be American students. If this House should be debating anything on this issue, it should be sanctions on these settlements and not a bill that protects them. Let me lay out a scenario so that we understand exactly how this piece of legislation would work. If a university in Texas decided tomorrow to stop doing business with a company in South Carolina, California, or Idaho, it would face no consequences under American law. Make the same decision about Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and this bill strips American students of their Pell grants and American veterans of their hard- earned benefits. This bill holds American students’ education hostage to protect a foreign government. We would be doing this in flagrant violation of the United States Constitution. In the landmark decision NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court held that a politically motivated boycott is protected expression under the First Amendment. This isn’t an obscure case. It is the reason the sponsors of the bill wrote the word ``nonexpressive’’ into the text. Yet, every example that the sponsors point to is plainly political. A boycott is a political act. It is protected under the First Amendment, and you don’t have to even agree with the boycott to support an American’s right to engage in it. Every Member of this body raised their hand and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I urge every Member of this body today to take that oath seriously and vote against this bill.”

“I oppose this bill. It hurts free speech and academic freedom by punishing colleges that boycott Israel or its settlements.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a statement from J Street, which says in part: ``This means infringing on constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom by penalizing institutions (and thereby unrelated research) for participation in certain boycott or divestment efforts targeted at Israel or Israeli settlements. There is a fundamental distinction between the State of Israel and the territory that it occupies over the Green Line, and penalizing universities for expressing their opposition to activities that further annexation sets a dangerous precedent.’’”

“I am sharing a statement from a teachers union that opposes this bill. They say it harms academic freedom, student safety, and access to college.”

“Mr. Speaker, I also include in the Record a statement from the American Federation of Teachers which says in part: ``The AFT has long fought for academic freedom, the safety and dignity of all students and educators, and policies that keep higher education accessible. H.R. 4795 undermines those goals rather than advancing them.’’”

“I want the House to vote against this bill. No American college has officially boycotted Israel. A student or teacher sharing an opinion is not the same as an official college policy. We should stop people from treating Jewish people badly, but we should not violate free speech to do it.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will close by returning to the central point: that we must distinguish between student or faculty expression in university policy. A student organization or individual faculty member supporting BDS is not the same thing as the university administration adopting BDS as policy. A faculty member expressing a political opinion is not the same thing as the institution imposing a boycott. Importantly, we have yet to see a single American college or university adopting BDS in the way the bill suggests. Furthermore, we know the bill is intended to target the BDS movement. Yet it is not clear whether a school that even joined the BDS movement would be covered by the text of the bill. The bill implicates ``nonexpressive boycotts’’ as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro) just pointed out. If it is expressive, it is protected by the First Amendment. BDS by its very nature is designed to express disapproval of the actions of the State of Israel. If a college or university came out and publicly said it was joining BDS, most people would agree that that announcement and any activity that flowed from it would clearly be expressive, and therefore, out of the scope of the bill. As an expressive activity, the statement would be protected under the First Amendment, and therefore, the First Amendment would protect the funding from being removed. But, again, no college or university has embraced the BDS movement anyway. We should combat anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, but we should not do so by punishing protected speech or conflating students’ views with university policies. For those reasons I urge a ``no’’ vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

“I am asking for a recorded vote on this bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 237, nays 169, not voting 27, as follows: Mr. VEASEY changed his vote from ``yea’’ to ``nay.’’ Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ changed her vote from ``nay’’ to ``yea.’’ So the bill was passed. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Stated for:”