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Critics argue bill violates First Amendment 

The Arizona State Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk Wednesday that would allow students and parents to sue public school educators for promoting antisemitism.

Public school teachers and staff “may not teach, instruct, or train students in any antisemitism or antisemitic conduct, act, or process that constitutes harassment or discrimination and that creates a hostile educational environment,” the Antisemitism in Education Act states.

The bill mandates the State Board of Education to reprimand a teacher after one offense, suspend the teacher after two, and revoke his or her teaching certificate after three violations.

Further, “A student who is at least eighteen years of age, or the parents of a minor student, may bring an action in a court of competent jurisdiction to enjoin any violation of this section that creates a hostile educational environment for the student,” the bill states.

The legislation also offers examples of kinds of speech it would prohibit, including labeling Israel’s existence as “racist” or likening Israeli policies to those of the Nazis, AZ Central reported.

The bill has drawn a mix of concern over First Amendment rights and support for protecting a targeted group.

The state’s primary teachers’ union, the Arizona Education Association, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, are among those speaking out against the legislation.

The union’s president, Marisol Garcia, told Cronkite News that a student may interpret a teacher’s statement as antisemitic and report it to a parent, who could then hire a lawyer.

“[T]he teacher would be served paperwork saying they need to go to court because they’ve been accused,” she said.

The union sent a letter to Gov. Katie Hobbs (pictured) urging her to veto the legislation, according to AZ Central.

The bill “weaponizes legitimate concerns about antisemitism to attack public education” by removing teachers’ protections, the union wrote.

Doing so would “incentivize bad-faith litigation by outside groups with unlimited resources, leaving Arizona educators, who already earn some of the lowest salaries in the nation, with few avenues to defend themselves,” it wrote.

In another letter to Gov. Hobbs, the ACLU of Arizona wrote that the bill “will chill the First Amendment rights of students, teachers, speakers and administrators,” unfairly targeting critics of Israel.

Similarly, Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman voted against the bill over free speech concerns, Cronkite News reported.

“The bill was poorly drafted in that it used an extremely problematic and open-ended IHRA definition of antisemitism that was highly subjective, with far too great a possibility of being weaponized against free speech,” Hoffman said.

“Anything that defines antisemitism in open-ended terms will invariably be used as a political weapon at some point,” he said.

On the other hand, Republican State Rep. Michael Way supported the bill, stating, “Arizona’s students and teachers deserve to learn and work in an environment free from antisemitic hate.”

“This bill ensures schools are places of learning, not battlegrounds for political indoctrination,” he stated. 

Republican State Rep. Walt Blackman also spoke out in favor of the bill, arguing it is necessary to protect a persecuted group.

“If you study your history, this sort of thing in schools were happening to Black Americans. And there wasn’t a law to protect Black Americans from anti-Black speech in schools, particularly in the South,” he said.

“This group of people, the Jewish community, this is a long time coming — to protect their identity, their community, their demographics,” Blackman said, according to AZ Central.

MORE: One in three Jewish students say faculty promote antisemitism: poll

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Gov. Hobbs speaks to Arizonans in a video message from her desk; Governor Katie Hobbs/YouTube

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