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6 ways President Trump can fight antisemitism from Day 1

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We’ve seen a subversion of the core mission of universities to seek truth and develop human knowledge, and of classical liberal values like free speech, due process and equality under the law. It’s been a shift from education to activism.

An anti-Israel student protester waves a large Palestinian flag at their encampment on the Columbia University campus, April 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, wrote a year ago that as a 70-year-old Jewish man, "never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks." Some of us were less surprised given the anti-Israel, anti-American and generally anti-Western ideology that has taken root in higher education.

Update and codify his executive order on antisemitism

Five years ago, Trump issued EO 13899, which called for robust enforcement of protections for Jews in all federally funded programs – including educational institutions. This order adopted and operationalized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The new administration should flesh it out, as well as pushing to codify it through the Antisemitism Awareness Act (which outgoing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has declined to bring to the Senate floor after the House passed it).

Enforce existing laws

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may prohibit even nonviolent "material support" for terrorism, including "advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization." RICO, which imposes criminal and civil penalties for organized crime, includes anti-conspiracy provisions applicable here. The Antiterrorism Act also provides a basis for punishing those who support America’s enemies. The FBI should shut down the groups that foment so much antisemitic disorder and intimidation on our streets and campuses.

Revoke tax-exempt status for antisemitic nonprofits

Revoke visas for students and others engaging in antisemitic agitation

A year ago, the State Department confirmed to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., now the nominee to be secretary of state, that it has the authority to revoke the visas of foreign nationals who espouse support for terrorism or otherwise violate federal laws. This authority has been little-used, in part because universities decline to take action against harassers who prevent Jewish students from attending class, precisely because they know that many of them would be subject to deportation. It’s time to stop giving foreign agitators more rights than even domestic miscreants possess.

Deny funding to universities that allow civil rights violations

Rescind Biden’s executive orders on whole-of-government DEI

As his very first official act, President Biden signed EO 13985, which established that "affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government." It directed all governmental units to eliminate "systemic barriers" to identity-based rules. 

As I describe in my book "Lawless," a slew of executive actions and proclamations followed, each one reciting a litany of directives on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The upshot is that the federal government has now fully adopted the DEI agenda and, through its army of lawyers and bureaucrats, is reinforcing it throughout every nook and cranny of its increasing reach into our lives. That’s why Biden also revoked President Trump’s EO 13950, which, among other things, blocked federal agencies and contractors from giving workplace instruction on "divisive concepts" such as race or sex essentialism. 

New legislation may be helpful to handling the new threats that have arisen – for example, a national right-to-work act to liberate unionized professors or antimasking laws of the sort that were effective in countering the Ku Klux Klan. But even without Congress, the new Trump administration has plenty of tools at its disposal to combat antisemitism.