Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – 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’s new investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and two other districts ignores similar or more serious incidents elsewhere, including in Walberg’s district, and reflects a selective and politicized response to a nationwide crisis.

“Antisemitism must be confronted wherever it appears. On that, we agree,” Congressman Walkinshaw said. “But 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’s 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.”

Walkinshaw 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’s 5th District—an incident in Chairman Walberg’s own community—as an example that mirrors the types of concerns he is now raising about FCPS but has not been the subject of similar scrutiny.

Walkinshaw 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.

Walkinshaw 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’s support of Paul Ingrassia, who reportedly praised white-supremacist ideology; and conservative figures who amplified antisemitic conspiracies such as so-called “Jewish space lasers.”

Walkinshaw 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.

Walkinshaw 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.

full letter text follows and is available here. 

###

The Honorable Tim Walberg

Chairman

Committee on Education and Workforce

2176 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Walberg,

I 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

agree. 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 

geographic 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.

The Anti-Defamation League’s 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

country. 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.

That 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’s 

5th 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 

deeply 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 “scummy jew.”

 Yet 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 

reflect a wider national trend, then consistency requires examining similar incidents occurring closer to home.

Antisemitism 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 

leanings. 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 

concern 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.

 It 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

for dinner along with Kanye West, a self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler.

 Another 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 

conversations in which he admitted he “has a Nazi streak,” expressed support for white-supremacist ideology, and denigrated civil-rights holidays. The Trump Administration did not 

immediately 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 

process. 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.

 It 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 

most visible antisemitic events on American soil in recent memory, making your newly expressed concern over antisemitism seem selectively applied. 

You 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 

threats 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 

entered 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 

deadliest 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 

opposed it.

 

If 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 

combating antisemitism in schools. Every incident deserves investigation, and every child deserves safety. FCPS has taken meaningful steps to address antisemitism, improve reporting 

mechanisms, and educate students, steps that deserve recognition, not public vilification. Holding Fairfax solely accountable for a nationwide problem does not advance solutions. It 

merely shifts blame.

To effectively confront antisemitism, your Committee should:

• Address all sources of antisemitic rhetoric, including those emanating from public
• figures, influencers, and political movements.
• Provide resources and guidance to school districts nationwide, rather than singling out a
• few for political theater.
• Support evidence-based antisemitism education, Holocaust education, and hate-prevention programs across states.
• Apply standards consistently including in Michigan, where documented issues also
• deserve scrutiny.

If 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 

approach to this crisis, one grounded in fairness, consistency, and the courage to acknowledge antisemitism wherever it appears, not only where it is politically expedient.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.