Another Biden Broken Promise?

"The Biden White House had announced last spring (and even before that), that the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) would deliver an important proposed regulation in December 2022. The regulation is supposed to implement the Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism, which former President Donald Trump had signed in 2019."

-Kenneth Marcus

On December 28, 2022, an op-ed appeared in the (LA) Jewish Journal by Kenneth Marcus, former head of the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, and CEO of the Louis D Brandeis Center. Marcus' op-ed was hopeful that President Biden would follow through on his statements condemning anti-Semitism and anticipated the President's promised regulations fighting anti-Semitism to be announced in December 2022. The op-ed may be accessed here.

Now the Biden administration has announced that such regulations will be delayed until December 2023. Marcus has now written this op-ed (dated January 9) in Newsweek. He is understandably disappointed.

I am also disappointed in Biden's announcement but hardly shocked. One could rightfully wonder why anti-discrimination regulations could be postponed for another year, but this is Joe Biden and his administration we are talking about here. Say what you will about Donald Trump, but any charges that he is anti-Semitic are hogwash. He singled out the universities (in my view, the worst source of today's anti-Semitism in the US) and put them on notice that they risked losing federal funding if they continued to allow their Jewish students to be subject to anti-Semitic attacks (under the guise of condemning Israel). Similarly, he supported Israel like few US presidents have. But like so many of Trump's positive policies (like securing our border), Biden is determined to sweep them all away.

But why postpone this another year? Does he want time to measure the opposition from the pro-Palestinian lobby and/or the academic lobby? Is he looking for some "middle ground" that will satisfy everybody? There is none. You are either against anti-Semitism or you are for it (or afraid to confront it).

Meanwhile, across the nation, Jewish students in our universities continue to be harassed by pro-Palestinian activists, and in our cities, Jews who are easily recognizable are physically assaulted on the streets. Maybe things will get better in December this year. It's only 11 months away.