“We’re either a free society governed by the Constitution, or we’re not,” Sen. Rand Paul said at a contentious Congressional hearing. “We need to challenge hate with reason, not censorship.”
He was addressing the proposed Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2025, which would add legislative authority to Trump’s executive order declaring anti-Semitism a dangerous form of discrimination in schools and universities, and would impose the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism in addressing discrimination claims through the Department of Education. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, including its extended examples, goes well beyond the anti-Jewish sentiment that has led to grave injustices in the past, to include criticism of the policies of the State of Israel.
The senator referred to the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which a Ku Klux Klan member convicted of state crimes for inciting violence against Jews and African-Americans won his case at the Supreme Court. “Brandenburg was a Nazi and an anti-Semite and he said horrible things,” said Paul. “And the First Amendment, the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled that you can say terrible things.”
