At Thursday’s hearing, which focused on Rutgers, UCLA, and Northwestern, some lawmakers continued a line of argument they had used in previous hearings: that anti-Semitism is happening on these campuses because the federal government doesn’t have enough money to stop it. It’s a preposterous claim, but since it’s become a regular talking point it’s worth calling out before it catches on further.

“The civil rights division of the Department of Education just reported in 2023 they had a record number of complaints for the department,” intoned Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.). “If you go back to 2009, it’s tripled in terms of the number of complaints—and a lot of those complaints involve anti-Semitism. But the staffing level at the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education back in 2009 [was] larger than it is today.”

Courtney then echoed his colleague Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and accused Republicans of trying to cut that division’s budget, “which I would characterize as the equivalent of defunding the anti-Semitism police. I think it’s our job at some point to focus on the fact that we need to beef up the ranks of that department whose mission it is to investigate and to curtail this type of activity.”