{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://walkinshaw.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=191", "Walkinshaw Presses Chairman Walberg to Address Antisemitism Consistently", "2025-12-01", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "House", "VA", "James R. Walkinshaw", "W000831", "walkinshaw.house.gov", "walkinshaw", "https://walkinshaw.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=27", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 Congressman James R. Walkinshaw (VA-11) called on Congressman Tim Walberg, Chair of the House Education & Workforce Committee, to take a comprehensive and consistent approach to rising antisemitism, warning that the Chairman\u2019s new investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and two other districts ignores similar or more serious incidents elsewhere, including in Walberg\u2019s district, and reflects a selective and politicized response to a nationwide crisis.\n\n\u201cAntisemitism must be confronted wherever it appears. On that, we agree,\u201d Congressman Walkinshaw said. \u201cBut confronting it requires consistency, seriousness, and a willingness to address every source of hate, not only the ones that are politically convenient. It is hard to take this investigation seriously when similar incidents in the Chairman\u2019s own district go unexamined, and when Republican leaders have repeatedly ignored antisemitism within their own ranks. The safety and well-being of the Jewish community are bigger than politics, and they must be treated that way.\u201d\n\nWalkinshaw noted that the Anti-Defamation League recorded more than 9,000 antisemitic incidents last year, the highest ever documented and rising in every region of the country. He pointed to a reported pro-Hamas role-play assignment at Sand Creek High School in Michigan\u2019s 5th District\u2014an incident in Chairman Walberg\u2019s own community\u2014as an example that mirrors the types of concerns he is now raising about FCPS but has not been the subject of similar scrutiny.\n\nWalkinshaw emphasized that federal law requires schools to provide safe learning environments free from discrimination, and said congressional oversight must strengthen those protections, not fuel partisan culture-war narratives.\n\nWalkinshaw underscored that Republican leaders have consistently failed to confront antisemitism within their own ranks. He pointed to Donald Trump hosting Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, at Mar-a-Lago; the Administration\u2019s support of Paul Ingrassia, who reportedly praised white-supremacist ideology; and conservative figures who amplified antisemitic conspiracies such as so-called \u201cJewish space lasers.\u201d\n\nWalkinshaw said these examples make clear that a credible response to rising antisemitism must confront all sources of hate, not only those that are politically convenient.\n\nWalkinshaw sent the letter after Chairman Walberg issued formal inquiries to FCPS, Berkeley Unified, and the School District of Philadelphia, an action Walkinshaw said reflects a selective response to a national crisis.\n\nfull letter text follows and is available here.\n\n###\n\nThe Honorable Tim Walberg\n\nChairman\n\nCommittee on Education and Workforce\n\n2176 Rayburn House Office Building\n\nWashington, DC 20515\n\nDear Chairman Walberg,\n\nI am writing in response to your announcement of an investigation into alleged antisemitic incidents within Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), Berkeley Unified, and the School District of Philadelphia. Antisemitism must be confronted wherever it appears. On that, we\n\nagree. But your inquiry gives the troubling impression that a handful of school districts are singularly responsible for a crisis that is national in scale and growing across all political and\n\ngeographic lines. If we are going to address antisemitism honestly, then we cannot do it selectively. And we certainly cannot do it by throwing stones from glass houses.\n\nThe Anti-Defamation League\u2019s most recent audit shows that the United States experienced the highest number of antisemitic incidents ever recorded in the last year, more than 9,000 incidents, including harassment, vandalism, and assaults, with increases recorded in every region of the\n\ncountry. These are not isolated failures of three school districts. This is a national crisis, cutting across schools, universities, online platforms, political movements, and social spaces. The data makes one thing unmistakably clear: no community is insulated, and no institution is exempt.\n\nThat includes your own. Before condemning Fairfax County, we must acknowledge problems in your own district. The ADL documents an incident from Sand Creek High School in Michigan\u2019s\n\n5th Congressional District in which an assignment was given to high school students instructing them to role-play as a pro-Hamas student organizer. If accurate, that is precisely the kind of\n\ndeeply inappropriate classroom content that should concern this Committee. In 2022, swastika graffiti was found in a high school bathroom in Marcellus, Michigan, in your district. The culprit of this antisemitism, also reportedly referred to the high school principal as a \u201cscummy jew.\u201d\n\nYet those reports did not prompt you to open an investigation into your own district. This selective scrutiny is difficult to ignore. If Fairfax County is to be investigated for incidents that\n\nreflect a wider national trend, then consistency requires examining similar incidents occurring closer to home.\n\nAntisemitism is not a partisan problem and the Committee cannot pretend otherwise. In your public statements, you suggest that antisemitism in schools is linked to certain ideological\n\nleanings. But antisemitism has gained ground across the spectrum and significantly within elements of the conservative movement as well. Even more troubling is the fact that your\n\nconcern is voiced at a moment when individuals with documented extremist views have been advancing within national power structures, in some cases with little apparent concern from your office.\n\nIt is no secret that vicious antisemites such as Nick Fuentes have been embraced, platformed, or courted by figures on the political right, helping mainstream rhetoric that once lived on the edges. Further, Donald Trump invited the neo-nazi, Holocaust denier, Fuentes, to Mar-a-Lago\n\nfor dinner along with Kanye West, a self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler.\n\nAnother vivid example is Paul Ingrassia. When first nominated by the Trump Administration to lead a federal watchdog agency, Ingrassia had reportedly participated in private group-chat\n\nconversations in which he admitted he \u201chas a Nazi streak,\u201d expressed support for white-supremacist ideology, and denigrated civil-rights holidays. The Trump Administration did not\n\nimmediately withdraw his nomination when his hate speech became public, but instead begrudgingly waited until it was clear he did not have the votes to survive the nomination\n\nprocess. Well-known conservative personalities and elected officials have amplified antisemitic conspiratorial claims, rhetoric that has no place in public discourse and unquestionably fuels the very climate we are all now confronting.\n\nIt is also worth recalling that you did not specifically denounce the explicitly antisemitic chants, symbols, and motivations driving the 2017 Charlottesville white-supremacist riot, one of the\n\nmost visible antisemitic events on American soil in recent memory, making your newly expressed concern over antisemitism seem selectively applied.\n\nYou also voted against the Nonprofit Security Grant Program Improvement Act of 2022, legislation that expanded funding to help safeguard nonprofits and houses of worship from rising\n\nthreats of terrorism and hate-motivated violence. This vote came even as antisemitic incidents were surging nationwide, including the January 15, 2022 attack in which an armed individual\n\nentered Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas and held four worshippers hostage for 11 hours, and the horrific massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that remains the\n\ndeadliest antisemitic attack in American history. The bill was designed to ensure that vulnerable community institutions had the resources they needed to protect their congregations, yet you\n\nopposed it.\n\nIf the Committee intends to address the causes of rising antisemitism, it must reckon with all of them, not just those that are politically convenient. Fairfax County is openly engaged in\n\ncombating antisemitism in schools. Every incident deserves investigation, and every child deserves safety. FCPS has taken meaningful steps to address antisemitism, improve reporting\n\nmechanisms, and educate students, steps that deserve recognition, not public vilification. Holding Fairfax solely accountable for a nationwide problem does not advance solutions. It\n\nmerely shifts blame.\n\nTo effectively confront antisemitism, your Committee should:\n\nAddress all sources of antisemitic rhetoric, including those emanating from public\n\nfigures, influencers, and political movements.\n\nProvide resources and guidance to school districts nationwide, rather than singling out a\n\nfew for political theater.\n\nSupport evidence-based antisemitism education, Holocaust education, and hate-prevention programs across states.\n\nApply standards consistently including in Michigan, where documented issues also\n\ndeserve scrutiny.\n\nIf this Committee wishes to lead on combating antisemitism, it must be willing to look inward as well as outward. I respectfully urge you to pursue a genuinely comprehensive, non-partisan\n\napproach to this crisis, one grounded in fairness, consistency, and the courage to acknowledge antisemitism wherever it appears, not only where it is politically expedient.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://walkinshaw.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=191"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.3593951482325792, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}