As student protests roil Columbia University and other campuses across the United States, Congress is stepping in to the fray.

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed an antisemitism bill 320-91 that would pressure universities to rein in on-campus rhetoric against Israel and Jews, or risk losing government funding. 

The bill, though bipartisan, faced some opposition especially from Democrats. Still, other Democratic politicians have joined Republicans in raising concerns about protesters’ rhetoric, from yelling “We are Hamas” – considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. – to saying “We don’t want no Zionists here.” Another frequent pro-Palestinian chant is “from the river to the sea” – a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which implies wiping Israel off the map.

While backers of the bill describe the issue as black and white, the legislation’s goal of defining antisemitic rhetoric and behavior tacitly acknowledges that it is complex. Protecting the rights of American Jews without violating the principle of free speech has become a matter of intense debate, and campuses have become the crucible for hashing that out.

As student protests roil Columbia University and other campuses across the United States, Congress is stepping in to the fray.

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed an antisemitism bill 320-91 that would pressure universities to rein in rhetoric against Israel and Jews, or risk losing government funding. 

The bill, though bipartisan, faced significant opposition from Democrats, some of whom see the bill as a Republican election-year ploy to score political points. Some Republicans also voted against it.

The vote follows months of House Republicans chastising top colleges for not having the backbone to rein in students protesting Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. 

“The country needs clear moral authority,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said on Tuesday, after taking the unusual step of personally visiting Columbia and speaking to the protesters last week, citing a vacuum of leadership. “We need the president to say, what’s happening on college campuses is wrong.”

While Mr. Johnson described the issue as black and white, the purported reason for this bill – to spell out more clearly what constitutes antisemitic rhetoric and behavior – tacitly acknowledges that it can be difficult to draw that line. Just how to protect the rights of American Jews without violating the First Amendment principle of free speech has become a matter of intense debate, and campuses have become the crucible for hashing that out.