‘We will make sure Jewish students feel welcome and safe’: Indiana Statehouse pushing to tackle antisemitism
INDIANAPOLIS — During what’s known as Organization Day at the Indiana Statehouse, Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston made it abundantly clear tackling antisemitism on college campuses would be a top priority for his caucus and that the House would pass a revamped HB 1037.
”We will make sure Jewish students feel welcome and safe here,” Speaker Huston said.
This comes after HB 1037 passed unanimously in the House last session, but failed to make it past the Senate. If passed, the bill would have laid out what constitutes an antisemitic act and would have codified antisemitism as discrimination.
”It was a good bill last year; it’s even more appropriate this year,” Speaker Huston said.
Abby Rose, the vice president of Chabad at IU, said the slogan “from the river to the sea” has popped up across campus: a controversial phrase some in the Jewish community say implicitly calls for Israel’s destruction.
”We aren’t feeling safe, and we’ve been experiencing that a lot in Indiana,” Rose said. ”[IU] President Whitten released a statement early on after pressure from students and donors to address the antisemitism on campus, but we’ve seen a great rise in it since then.”
The Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council said in the weeks following Oct. 7, the number of antisemitic incidents nationwide increased by 400 percent compared to the same year.
But whether or not a revamped HB 1037 makes it past the Senate is unclear.
”I think the House is going to work on that again,” Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said. “We’ll take a look at it when it comes back over here...I haven’t spent much time on that yet.”
Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor said this legislation doesn’t take into account acts of hatred against Black, Muslim and LGBTQ college students.
”If we wanted to pick out a group of people to support, that’s not the way we do things in Indiana, we should be wanting to protect everyone,” State Sen. Taylor said.
In a statement, IU said in part:
“Hate has no home at I-U and acts of antisemitism and Islamophobia will not be tolerated.” This comes two weeks after Indiana Rep. Jim Banks wrote a letter to IU President Dr. Pamela Whitten requesting information on alleged antisemitic incidents on campus. His office is requesting that information by December 1, 2023.
