(The Center Square) – Republican U.S. senators introduced a bill that would ban student loan forgiveness for protestors convicted of a crime while protesting on U.S. college campuses.

The No Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act was filed by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., with multiple cosponsors. The bill would prevent any college or university student who is convicted of any offense under federal or state law while protesting at a higher education institution from having their federal student loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court striking down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program last June, his administration has proposed new student debt cancellation plans that could cost taxpayers up to $1.4 trillion, The Center Square reported.

The senators, who oppose Biden's plans, proposed the bill after widespread, anti-Semitic protests continue to occur on campuses nationwide resulting in violence against Jewish students and in-person instruction and graduations being canceled. In the past few weeks alone, hundreds of students nationwide have been arrested on charges ranging from disrupting the peace, criminal trespass, alleged hate crimes, and acts of violence.

“Americans who never went to college or responsibly paid off their debts shouldn't have to pay off other people's student loans. They especially shouldn't have to pay off the loans of Hamas sympathizers shutting down and defacing campuses,” Cotton said.

U.S. Rep. Brandon Williams, R-NY, who is sponsoring companion legislation in the House, said, “Violent campus protestors laughably demand respect, amnesty, and even takeout food. Our bicameral bill ensures that not one student protestor convicted of criminal offenses is bailed out by student loan forgiveness. Not one dime of taxpayer money will fund these criminals.”

No Democrats signed onto Cotton's bill. Republican cosponsors include Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Katie Britt of Alabama, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ted Cruz of Texas, Steve Daines of Montana, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Roger Marshall of Kansas, James Risch of Idaho, Mitt Romney of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and J.D. Vance of Ohio.

Cotton also led another delegation of 27 U.S. senators last month calling on the Departments of Justice and Education to immediately respond to the “outbreak of anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs on college campuses.”

They called on the Department of Education and federal law enforcement “to restore order, prosecute the mobs who have perpetuated violence and threats against Jewish students, revoke the visas of all foreign nationals (such as exchange students) who have taken part in promoting terrorism, and hold accountable school administrators who have stood by instead of protecting their students,” The Center Square reported. At the time, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights was currently investigating roughly 100 incidents at colleges and universities for alleged “discrimination involving shared ancestry” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Center Square reported.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, antisemitism and violence escalated against Jews in America by nearly 400%, The Center Square reported. Since then, violence has increased on college campuses with leaders failing to stop it, another report found.

Hamas, the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), was designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. “It is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories and one of the territories' two major political parties,” according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

More than a dozen federal judges have pledged not to hire students from Columbia University after its leaders allowed pro-Hamas encampments on its property and chose to shut down in-person instruction and cancelled graduation. The judges said Columbia had become an “incubator of bigotry” against Jewish people, The Center Square reported.

Several Jewish groups have also sued Palestinian groups they argue are “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.” Advocating for the death of Jews and committing violence against Jews is not protected speech under the First Amendment, they argue.

Cotton's bill was also filed after nearly all Ivy League universities received failing grades for antisemitism, The Center Square reported. They include Harvard, whose student group hosted a pro-Palestinian activist with ties to Hamas; Brown, which is considering divesting from Israel; and Yale, who's student paper's editor was stabbed in the eye by a pro-Hamas rioter.

According to The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, only 2% of Americans surveyed said public universities should encourage students to oppose Israel; 32% said students advocating for the genocide of Jews at schools receiving taxpayer funding should be held accountable for their words and actions.

(The Center Square) – A coalition of 23 attorneys general led by Utah and South Carolina have called on Congress to permanently defund a United Nations agency after learning of its ties to the terrorist organization Hamas.

In a letter to congressional leaders, they said, “The United States must stop funding antisemitic education efforts run by the United Nations body tied to terror organization Hamas. On Oct. 7, UNRWA staff participated in the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.”

The agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, denied knowing that Hamas established intelligence operations directly below and in its headquarters in Gaza. Israeli Security Agency operatives raided UNRWA's headquarters earlier this year and found large quantities of weapons, rifles, ammunition, grenades and explosives in its offices, as well as a 700-meter long and 18-meter deep tunnel below, the Times of Israel reported.

Since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hamas has refused to share fuel with hospitals, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress. Multiple reports revealed that Hamas was storing weapons and munitions in hospitals and schools, preventing food and water from reaching civilians, The Center Square reported.

In January, UNRWA announced it had fired more than a dozen employees for participating in the Oct. 7 attack. But a coalition of attorneys general weren't convinced and called on Congress to defund UNRWA. Twenty-six AGs led by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said, “UNRWA's ties to terrorism are nothing new. UNRWA employed one school principal who moonlit as an Islamic Jihad bomber and another who was a Hamas commandant. One UNRWA school teacher is accused of detaining an October 7 hostage for nearly two months … [and] every UNRWA school the Israeli Defense Forces searched contained hidden weapons.”

Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. stopped all federal funding to UNRWA in 2018. President Joe Biden reinstated the funding on his first day in office. In his first term alone, U.S. taxpayers have funded UNRWA to the tune of $1 billion.

“For even a single taxpayer dollar to fund a corrupt organization that hires and harbors terrorists is despicable,” Bird said. “President Trump got it right when he stopped payments to UNRWA in 2018. It's the federal government's job to prosecute terrorists, not fund them. We're calling on Congress to take immediate action and defund UNRWA once and for all.”

On Tuesday, a second coalition of 23 AGs again called on Congress to fully defund UNRWA. “We call on Congress to stop funding this nascent and growing terror threat,” they said. “Radicalization in the Middle East today can lead to future attacks on the United States, our citizens, and our allies. Recognizing that, President Trump cut funding to UNRWA that was only restored after President Biden took office. Just as with the crisis at the border, President Biden should recognize that it is time to adopt the right policy of his predecessor.”

The coalition includes attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In addition to funding the UNRWA, Biden ignored calls by House and Senate Republicans to rescind visas of pro-Hamas individuals living in the U.S. Senate Democrats also blocked any attempt to deport Hamas sympathizers.

As Palestinians and pro-Hamas supporters increasingly called for the death of Jews, the annihilation of Israel, and Jewish Americans on college campuses were targeted with violence, Biden expanded measures to prevent “certain Palestinians” from being deported, The Center Square reported. He is also reportedly considering offering refugee status to Palestinians in the U.S. when nearly all Islamic countries will not take them. Neighboring Egypt fortified its wall and security forces to block illegal entry from Gaza.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has for months warned that Hamas and Islamic extremists could commit a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. More recently, he acknowledged that groups affiliated with ISIS were coming through the U.S. border, The Center Square reported.

This is after the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) have been apprehended illegally entering the U.S. under the current administration. Fiscal year 2024 through April 24, 235 KSTs have been apprehended, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The majority, by a margin of 2-1, are being apprehended at the northern border.

In fiscal 2023, 736 KSTs were apprehended nationwide – the greatest number in recorded U.S. history. The significant majority – 66%, or 487– were apprehended at the northern border.

(The Center Square) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced Monday she is leading a lawsuit with Mississippi, Montana and Idaho to fight the Biden Administration's new Title IX rules.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Western Louisiana, seeks the overturn of the rules on constitutional grounds, an injunction preventing the administration from enforcing Title IX “in accordance with erroneous interpretation” in the rule and attorney fees and court costs. 

The lawsuit says the rule is a “a naked attempt to strong-arm our schools into molding our children in the current federal government's preferred image of how a child should think, act and speak. The Final Rule is an affront to the dignity of families and school administrators everywhere and is nowhere close to legal.”

The lawsuit also says the new rule will “gut the very essence of Title IX and destroy decades of advances in equal educational opportunities, especially for women and girls.”

“With the stroke of a pen and 400 pages of rules written by would-be lawmakers in Washington, D.C. conference rooms, the DOE published Title IX regulations intended to remake American societal norms through classrooms, lunchrooms, bathrooms and locker rooms of American schools,” Murrill said at a Monday news conference with Gov. Jeff Landry. “Make no mistake: These rules eviscerate Title IX. They are entirely contrary to what Title IX was intended to achieve and what we have implemented and intended Title IX to mean and protect for 50 years.

“Title IX was intended to prevent pervasive discrimination against biological women.”

She also said the federal government's overreach was like a degree and dimension “like no other.” 

“Whatever lever, whatever power the governor's office has or the statutes vest in me, we will 100% be standing behind this Legislature, this attorney general and behind the BESE board because we do not intend to comply,” Landry said. “We are not going to pretend there is some kind of sexual category other than the ones the Almighty has set forth. There's only two of them. We look forward to this fight because this fight is right.”

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, who was flanked by some members of the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said that this was a “line in the sand issue and a bridge too far for the state of Louisiana” and voiced his support for the lawsuit. 

Title IX prohibits educational institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex in both educational programs and activities.

The new rules finalized by the Department of Education and which are supposed to go into effect Aug. 1. expand the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy, but the agency didn't issue any rules relating to transgender athletes. Among the changes include a prohibition on single-sex bathroom and locker rooms and requirements that a school use pronouns based on a student's preferred gender identity.