Tag: Domestic

  • DOJ plan to target ‘domestic terrorists’ risks chilling speech

    DOJ plan to target ‘domestic terrorists’ risks chilling speech

    Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly sent a memo two weeks ago indicating how the federal government intends to target “domestic terrorist organizations.” That memo outlines how the Justice Department plans to implement President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7. 

    To explain what’s wrong with Bondi’s memo, we need to bounce back and forth between it and NSPM-7. Think of it this way: NSPM-7 is an idea, and Bondi’s memo is a checklist in furtherance of that idea. At the same time, the memo isn’t quite a blueprint, because it still omits key details about what the Justice Department intends to do. But what it does include is alarming.

    NSPM-7 was issued in late September and announced a federal government effort to identify “domestic terror organizations.” It also listed specific ideologies, like “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” as “common threads” motivating political threats and violence.

    In the memo, the attorney general ordered all federal law enforcement agencies to “review their files and holdings for Antifa and Antifa-related intelligence and information” and turn it over to the FBI within 14 days. The FBI is directed to then report to the deputy attorney general which groups (if any) are engaged in acts that “may constitute domestic terrorism.”

    Bondi’s memo also includes two new elements in this process: promoting the FBI’s terrorism tip line, and establishing a cash reward system for reports that lead to the identification and arrest of the leaders of domestic terrorism organizations.

    A few problems jump out at me.

    The Bondi memo, like NSPM-7, blurs the line between investigating crimes and ideologies

    Like NSPM-7 before it, Bondi’s memo states that recent political attacks share common motivating ideologies, saying that groups are using terrorism to advance agendas like “radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity.” As I said in September, the government has inappropriately targeted groups by ideology in the recent past:

    During the Obama administration, the IRS targeted nonprofit groups with the words “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names, identifying groups by ideology and punishing them by subjecting them to extra processes. And its explanation was that this was just a “shortcut” — other organizations with similar profiles had violated IRS rules, so they jumped to targeting groups that used similar words.

    In 2023, the FBI distributed an internal memo linking “ethnically motivated violent extremists” to traditional Catholic ideology, a call for viewpoint-based targeting that was only exposed by a whistleblower and oversight from Congress. In 2022, an internal FBI memo linked the Gadsden flag and other patriotic symbols to violent extremism. And while such links do exist, and it makes sense for law enforcement to identify them, it also risks sweeping up ordinary Americans.

    These tactics create the risk that any member of any political movement could find themselves added to a government list and subjected to special scrutiny if others with the same ideology commit an ideologically motivated crime. But it’s not a crime (terrorism or otherwise) to hold “radical” beliefs about “gender ideology” or to take positions on core American values that contradict the government’s view.

    This happened before during the McCarthy era. Communist rhetoric resonated with some 1950s Americans who wanted working people to have decent wages, but that did not mean most American socialists were Soviet spies or conspired to overthrow the government. Nonetheless, accusations of vast criminality were used to justify sprawling government investigations into groups that espoused socialist views.

    You can’t vindicate American values against anti-American ideologies with un-American practices like warmed-over McCarthyism.

    I want to be clear that saying ideology should not be the starting point of an investigation is not at all to diminish the very real, ideologically-motivated threats faced by government employees, politicians, and political actors. The memos mention Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the October shooting at a Dallas ICE facility among other incidents; they could just as easily include the assassination of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, or the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise. There are people who want to hurt or kill public officials and public figures for doing their jobs, and those people will often offer ideological reasons for doing that.

    However, that some terrorists have an ideology does not make everyone with the same ideology a terrorist.

    And that is the core problem with this whole endeavor. People who conspire to engage in actual criminal behavior should be investigated, arrested, and prosecuted. But these memos aren’t narrowly focused on groups that exist for the purpose of ideologically motivated violence, which act to bring about violence; they broadly condemn particular viewpoints and lay a foundation for a government watchlist of American groups which share those viewpoints. And where does that get us? You can’t vindicate American values against anti-American ideologies with un-American practices like warmed-over McCarthyism.

    ‘Domestic terrorist organization’ designation is still a matter of AG whims

    While the phrase “domestic terrorist organization” sounds very official, it doesn’t have a statutory definition or accompanying due process protections, unlike its nominative counterpart, the foreign terrorist organization. NSPM-7 delegated to the attorney general the ability to recommend which groups should be so designated, but not whether they will be.

    Bondi’s memo directs federal law enforcement to provide information to the AG’s office that would presumably guide those initial recommendations, but offers no further information on duration or appeals. It doesn’t even suggest that a group so designated would be given notice of that designation.

    Why everything Pam Bondi said about ‘hate speech’ is wrong

    The nation’s top law enforcement officer doesn’t understand there is no hate-speech exception to the First Amendment — and that’s scary.


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    NSPM-7 essentially argues a domestic terrorist organization is an organization with members who commit acts meeting the statutory definition of domestic terrorism. That definition includes unlawful “acts dangerous to human life” that “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.” It includes no requirement that the organization itself have unlawful aims or that the members’ actions are in furtherance of them. 

    By asking the FBI to compile “a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” as defined by statute, Bondi’s memo at first seems to be more narrowly focused. But that limitation remains an exercise of discretion, and could change as directed by the president or a successor. And it’s not even entirely clear that the list provided by the FBI is the exclusive source in Bondi’s decision-making process, or what that process looks like after she received the list. 

    One reason to question how much this definition is cabined in practice is that the administration has designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. But Antifa is mostly an ideology, not a defined organization, as such. There might well be domestic terrorist organizations that hold Antifa-aligned tenets, but a philosophy is not an organization, even if some organizations refer to it in their names. Designating Antifa as a terrorist organization is a little like planning to meet someone at a restaurant and you pick the restaurant “hamburger.” 

    Doxing isn’t ‘domestic terrorism’

    The Bondi memo also repeats, and expands on, NSPM-7’s decision to treat doxing (publishing information online that makes specific people identifiable) as a crime that counts as “domestic terrorism.” But as I said in September, it often isn’t:

    Doxing is protected speech unless it violates some other existing law. After all, doxing describes much of the basic activity of news media, where otherwise unknown information is found and published, and frequently, that information is personally identifiable. That’s especially true when the “doxing” the government is upset about is information related to public employees in the course of their duties, such as the location of ICE agents.

    Bondi does not agree. After someone developed ICEBlock, an app for users to share the locations of ICE activity, Bondi said in an interview: “We are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that’s not protected speech.”

    Note that ICEBlock is, in fact, protected speech. The ability to share facts about public employees in the execution of their duties in public spaces is not a gray area under the First Amendment; it’s protected speech.

    The theory under which Bondi seems to be operating is that if people know where ICE activity is happening, they will use that information either to engage in violence against agents or to evade lawful court orders. In July, congressional republicans sent Bondi a letter stating: “Sharing real-time locations of ICE officers paints targets on their backs, increasing the likelihood that they face immediate resistance.”

    ICEBlock was removed from the Apple store in October (as were similar apps and groups on other platforms), with Apple saying it took that decision “based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock.” Earlier this week, ICEBlock’s developer sued the Trump administration, arguing that pressure from the government led to the app’s removal.

    Trump’s ‘domestic terrorism’ memo chillingly targets people by ideology

    Trump’s “domestic terrorism” memo blurs the line between policing crimes and policing beliefs — with chilling echoes of McCarthyism.


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    ICE agents have indeed faced violence, including a July shooting at a facility in Alvarado, Texas and a September sniper attack in Dallas that left two detainees and the gunman dead. So far, however, there is no evidence these actions were related to ICEBlock or any other ICE-tracking app or website. And there are lots of legitimate reasons people might want to know the location of ICE activity that don’t involve violence or frustrating the enforcement of laws — like avoiding traffic delays or not wanting to be caught in the middle of a mass arrest that doesn’t involve them. An app that shows the location of ICE raids no more aids terrorism against ICE agents than a street map showing a residential area aids home invasions. 

    References to doxing as “acts of domestic terrorism” in the Bondi memo could be the administration doubling down on its condemnation of ICEBlock and similar apps, hoping to at least chill their use by implication, if not outright threaten to prosecute them for aiding domestic terrorism. Treating doxing (which is protected speech) as domestic terrorism opens the door to government investigations of people who oppose ICE with truthful, public information.

    Anonymous tip line exacerbates potential for abuse

    The president and AG have identified a number of ideologies shared by domestic terrorists, argued these shared ideologies indicate group sponsorship, and want to encourage people to make more reports (anonymous or otherwise) about the topic. The FBI already has a tip line, and it accepts anonymous reports. Bondi’s memo just directs that the FBI consider how to better promote it for this specific purpose. 

    But what is the specific purpose that the administration intends to promote? Both NSPM-7 and the Bondi memo seem to target both crime (which they should) and beliefs (which they should not). Blurring the line between the two could make this a hotline for reporting wrongthink. We have seen the effect of anonymous reporting hotlines for ideological wrongthink in the context of campus Bias Response Teams:

    They frequently record accusations without providing a method of contesting their reports or even identifying the accusing party. Vague accusations of racism rooted in innocuous behavior is an exceptionally common feature of cancellation attempts. In promising to punish (potentially with police help) accusations of racism while obscuring the identity and motives of the accuser, BRTs are perfect engines for ideological abuse.

    Bondi, Vice President JD Vance, and Stephen Miller have all recently called for punishing non-criminal behavior through either state power or cancel culture. An FBI hotline collecting reports of non-criminal activity (like doxing) would be a troubling escalation — one that should trouble even those who agree with the spirit of Bondi’s memo. That’s because the power the hotline grants would exist for the next administration, too, which might not see the world in quite the same way. 

    All of this creates a real chilling effect

    As I wrote in September, “when the president uses his pen to take aim at anything, it will cause a chilling effect.” The attorney general’s pen is no less frosty as it conveys the message of likely or possible criminal prosecution.  

    In a footnote, Bondi’s memo says that “no investigation may be opened based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment” or other civil rights. But it also identifies protected speech — doxing — as a criminal act of terrorism. What other non-criminal activities might yield investigations? Presumably things related to the viewpoints listed in NSPM-7 and reiterated again in the Bondi memo. In turn, Americans will act rationally — and become less likely to say what they really think.

    We might know more in 30 days, when the FBI reports to the deputy AG the results of its review of groups. Check back then for more.

    (H/t to Ken Klippenstein for actually publishing the memo)

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  • Trump’s ‘domestic terrorism’ memo chillingly targets people by ideology

    Trump’s ‘domestic terrorism’ memo chillingly targets people by ideology

    On Thursday, the White House published a presidential memo — technically, a national security presidential memorandum — outlining its upcoming efforts to combat political violence.

    In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a heightened attention to political violence makes sense. But this memo doesn’t focus on actual violence. It includes frequent references to constitutionally protected speech and ideas. 

    While there are quite a few pieces of this order that set off alarm bells, a few of the phrases struck me as especially troubling. Here they are. 

    ‘anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity’

    The memo says: 

    There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” [ . . . ] Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

    This is the most troubling passage in the memo, and there’s stiff competition for that title. This is the White House directly identifying beliefs, pointing the finger at them, and saying, “These are the suspicious people we need to watch.” In America, we shouldn’t target people for their ideologies. We should target them for their actions, full stop. 

    Recent Democratic administrations have engaged in the same guilt-by-association tactics. During the Obama administration, the IRS targeted nonprofit groups with the words “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names, identifying groups by ideology and punishing them by subjecting them to extra processes. And its explanation was that this was just a “shortcut” — other organizations with similar profiles had violated IRS rules, so they jumped to targeting groups that used similar words.

    In 2023, the FBI distributed an internal memo linking “ethnically motivated violent extremists” to traditional Catholic ideology, a call for viewpoint-based targeting that was only exposed by a whistleblower and oversight from Congress. In 2022, an internal FBI memo linked the Gadsden flag and other patriotic symbols to violent extremism. And while such links do exist, and it makes sense for law enforcement to identify them, it also risks sweeping up ordinary Americans.

    A man carries a Gadsden flag at a Proud Boys rally in Portland, Oregon, 2019.

    It may well be that some people who engage in politically motivated violence have anti-American beliefs, oppose the traditional family, or dislike organized religion. They should be prosecuted. And if there’s evidence of conspiracy or concrete steps toward violence, that may warrant an investigation. But we cannot start investigating other people simply because they happen to share those beliefs. Doing so would open the door to investigations of any political movement or ideology if any one of its adherents happened to engage in violence. 

    ‘…designation as a ‘domestic terrorist organization’’

    The memo also says:

    [T]he Attorney General may recommend that any group or entity whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of “domestic terrorism” in 18 U.S.C. 2331(5) merits designation as a “domestic terrorist organization.”

    Designating something a domestic terrorist organization sounds like a parallel to the process we use for identifying foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). That process was created by Congress in a statute. Being designated as an FTO triggers a number of legal effects, enabling the government to seize assets, revoke visas, bar entry of non-citizens, and prosecute people who provide any direct help to the organization. Congress has the ability to block or revoke FTO designation, and organizations themselves are entitled to judicial review of the decision to include them on a list.

    There is no such process for designating a domestic terrorist organization. In fact, the “domestic terrorist organization” definition proposed here has no legal safeguards and no clear significance. It’s completely made up. It seems an organization so designated will receive extra scrutiny from the federal government until it pleases the attorney general to remove them from the list. Donors, speakers, employees, and members of these organizations will all have their speech chilled for as long as the executive branch sees fit. 

    It’s hard not to compare this to the Hollywood blacklist during McCarthyism. There were, in fact, real Russian spies elsewhere in America, many of them motivated by their ideological commitment to communism. Some of them were passing nuclear secrets to our rival in the middle of a nuclear arms race, the stakes of which were, potentially, catastrophic beyond all human imagination. Many people on the blacklist did have ties to communism or communist sympathies, as well. But putting people on a list because the government didn’t like their politics violated the freedoms we claimed to be protecting. 

    ‘…politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing…’

    “Organized doxing” is a strange phrase. 

    Doxing (or doxxing) is generally defined as publishing private information that makes someone online personally identifiable. It’s also legal in most places, as long as the information was lawfully obtained and isn’t otherwise part of harassment or incitement efforts. Whether you think that’s bad or not, I don’t know that organizing the effort makes it worse. If someone posts your personal information online, your first question isn’t likely to be, “How many people were involved and what was their political purpose?”

    However distasteful it might be in context, doxing is protected speech unless it violates some other existing law. After all, doxing describes much of the basic activity of news media, where otherwise unknown information is found and published, and frequently, that information is personally identifiable. That’s especially true when the “doxing” the government is upset about is information related to public employees in the course of their duties, such as the location of ICE agents.

    A missive from the most powerful man in the world carries so much force that it is, inevitably, a blunt instrument. When the president uses his pen to take aim at anything, it will cause a chilling effect.

    The administration itself has arguably been encouraging coordinated doxing efforts to identify people who said cruel things in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. When the vice president calls on the public to contact the employers of people who made unkind statements, and there have been groups soliciting submissions of those statements to catalog them, it would take exceptional care on the part of any future participants to avoid their efforts turning into doxing. 

    If organized doxing is a politically motivated terrorist act when an NGO encourages it, but it’s legal when the White House encourages it, the current administration should remember that it will be leaving that loaded gun on the desk of the next president — who may define “permissible doxing” much differently. 

    ‘Investigate institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations…’

    The memo directs that the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices shall investigate “institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in” political violence, intimidation, or obstruction of the rule of law. 

    To aid or abet criminal conduct requires knowledge of the conduct. To the extent officers and employees of organizations are knowingly breaking the law, I’d like to think that law enforcement is investigating them anyway. It’s been a few decades since I took criminal law, but I’m pretty sure “investigate people who know they’re breaking the law” was on the first page of the outline. Same with people who are “responsible for” it. 

    So what this memo is adding, then, is to investigate “institutional and individual funders” who “sponsor” the organizations that aid the principal actors engaged in political violence. That reading is also reflected in a call for the use of financial surveillance tools. It’s also consistent with a Justice Department push to investigate a group tied to billionaire investor and Democratic megadonor George Soros.

    If there is evidence that a donor was knowingly funding violence, they should be investigated, but the administration hasn’t actually shown such evidence. They simply assert there is a vast conspiracy on the left — going all the way up to its highest echelons — to fund and foment political violence, and so a sprawling investigation of the president’s ideological and political opponents is justified. 

    We have already seen orders like this get misused

    A missive from the most powerful man in the world carries so much force that it is, inevitably, a blunt instrument. When the president uses his pen to take aim at anything, it will cause a chilling effect.

    For example, when President Trump issued an executive order on gender ideology that prohibited federal funding to programs that suggest gender is a spectrum, Texas A&M cancelled an annual drag show and the National Endowment for the Arts reviewed applications for their consistency with the order. Neither of these outcomes were obvious on the face of the order. 

    What will the overreactions to this new memo look like? Donors ending their support because they don’t want to risk an investigation? Groups being denied bank loans or leases because they’re on a government list with no way to appeal that determination? Activists going underground because they want to challenge an orthodoxy, hiding their opinions from the places where they would otherwise be challenged in the marketplace of ideas? 

    If this is the plan to save American values, what’s the plan to destroy them look like?

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  • 100 Ways the Trump Administration Has Undermined the Environment, Human Rights, World and Domestic Peace, Labor, and Knowledge

    100 Ways the Trump Administration Has Undermined the Environment, Human Rights, World and Domestic Peace, Labor, and Knowledge

    The Trump administration, since returning to power in 2025, has escalated attacks on the foundations of democracy, the environment, world peace, human rights, and intellectual inquiry. While the administration has marketed itself as “America First,” its policies have more often meant profits for the ultra-wealthy, repression for the working majority, and escalating dangers for the planet.

    Below is a running list of 100 of the most dangerous actions and policies—a record of how quickly a government can dismantle hard-won protections for people, peace, and the planet.

    I. Attacks on the Environment

    1. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement—again.

    2. Dismantling the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

    3. Opening federal lands and national parks to oil, gas, and mining leases.

    4. Gutting protections for endangered species.

    5. Allowing coal companies to dump mining waste in rivers and streams.

    6. Rolling back vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

    7. Subsidizing fossil fuel companies while defunding renewable energy programs.

    8. Suppressing climate science at federal agencies.

    9. Greenlighting pipelines that threaten Indigenous lands and water supplies.

    10. Promoting offshore drilling in fragile ecosystems.

    11. Weakening Clean Water Act enforcement.

    12. Dismantling environmental justice programs that protect poor communities.

    13. Politicizing NOAA and censoring weather/climate warnings.

    14. Undermining international climate cooperation at the UN.

    15. Allowing pesticides banned in Europe to return to U.S. farms.

    II. Undermining World Peace and Global Stability

    1. Threatening military action against Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea.

    2. Expanding the nuclear arsenal instead of pursuing arms control.

    3. Cutting funding for diplomacy and the State Department.

    4. Withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).

    5. Weakening NATO alliances with inflammatory rhetoric.

    6. Escalating drone strikes and loosening rules of engagement.

    7. Providing cover for authoritarian leaders worldwide.

    8. Walking away from peace negotiations in the Middle East.

    9. Blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, Yemen, and other war-torn areas.

    10. Expanding weapons sales to Saudi Arabia despite human rights abuses.

    11. Using tariffs and sanctions as blunt instruments against allies.

    12. Politicizing intelligence briefings to justify military adventurism.

    13. Abandoning refugee protections and asylum agreements.

    14. Treating climate refugees as security threats.

    15. Reducing U.S. participation in the United Nations.

    III. Attacks on Human Rights and the Rule of Law

    1. Expanding family separation policies at the border.

    2. Targeting asylum seekers for indefinite detention.

    3. Militarizing immigration enforcement with National Guard troops.

    4. Attacking reproductive rights and defunding women’s health programs.

    5. Rolling back LGBTQ+ protections in schools and workplaces.

    6. Reinstating bans on transgender service members in the military.

    7. Undermining voting rights through purges and voter ID laws.

    8. Packing the courts with extremist judges hostile to civil rights.

    9. Weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents.

    10. Expanding surveillance powers with little oversight.

    11. Encouraging police crackdowns on protests.

    12. Expanding use of federal troops in U.S. cities.

    13. Weakening consent decrees against abusive police departments.

    14. Refusing to investigate hate crimes tied to far-right violence.

    15. Deporting long-term immigrants with no criminal record.

    IV. Attacks on Domestic Peace and Tranquility

    1. Encouraging militias and extremist groups with dog whistles.

    2. Using inflammatory rhetoric that stokes racial and religious hatred.

    3. Equating journalists with “enemies of the people.”

    4. Cutting funds for community-based violence prevention.

    5. Politicizing natural disaster relief.

    6. Treating peaceful protests as national security threats.

    7. Expanding federal use of facial recognition surveillance.

    8. Undermining local control with federal overreach.

    9. Stigmatizing entire religious and ethnic groups.

    10. Promoting conspiracy theories from the presidential podium.

    11. Encouraging violent crackdowns on labor strikes.

    12. Undermining pandemic preparedness and response.

    13. Allowing corporations to sidestep workplace safety rules.

    14. Shutting down diversity and inclusion training across agencies.

    15. Promoting vigilante violence through online platforms.

    V. Attacks on Labor Rights and the Working Class

    1. Weakening the Department of Labor’s enforcement of wage theft.

    2. Blocking attempts to raise the federal minimum wage.

    3. Undermining collective bargaining rights for federal workers.

    4. Supporting right-to-work laws across states.

    5. Allowing employers to misclassify gig workers as “independent contractors.”

    6. Blocking new OSHA safety standards.

    7. Expanding exemptions for overtime pay.

    8. Weakening rules on child labor in agriculture.

    9. Cutting unemployment benefits during economic downturns.

    10. Favoring union-busting corporations in federal contracts.

    11. Rolling back protections for striking workers.

    12. Encouraging outsourcing of jobs overseas.

    13. Weakening enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in workplaces.

    14. Cutting funding for worker retraining programs.

    15. Promoting unpaid internships as a “pathway” to jobs.

    VI. Attacks on Intellectualism and Knowledge

    1. Defunding the Department of Education in favor of privatization.

    2. Attacking public universities as “woke indoctrination centers.”

    3. Promoting for-profit colleges with predatory practices.

    4. Restricting student loan forgiveness programs.

    5. Undermining Title IX protections for sexual harassment.

    6. Defunding libraries and public broadcasting.

    7. Politicizing scientific research grants.

    8. Firing federal scientists who contradict administration narratives.

    9. Suppressing research on gun violence.

    10. Censoring federal climate and environmental data.

    11. Promoting creationism and Christian nationalism in schools.

    12. Expanding surveillance of student activists.

    13. Encouraging book bans in schools and libraries.

    14. Undermining accreditation standards for higher education.

    15. Attacking historians who challenge nationalist myths.

    16. Cutting humanities funding in favor of military research.

    17. Encouraging political litmus tests for professors.

    18. Treating journalists as combatants in a “culture war.”

    19. Promoting AI-driven “robocolleges” with no faculty oversight.

    20. Gutting federal student aid programs.

    21. Allowing corporate donors to dictate university policy.

    22. Discouraging international students from studying in the U.S.

    23. Criminalizing whistleblowers who reveal government misconduct.

    24. Promoting conspiracy theories over peer-reviewed science.

    25. Normalizing ignorance as a political strategy.        

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  • House Passes Bills to Protect Older Job Applicants and Strengthen Domestic Violence Prevention and Survivor Support Services – CUPA-HR

    House Passes Bills to Protect Older Job Applicants and Strengthen Domestic Violence Prevention and Survivor Support Services – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | November 9, 2021

    On October 26 and November 4, 2021, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2119, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act of 2021, and H.R. 3992, the Protect Older Job Applicants (POJA) Act of 2021, respectively. Both bills passed by a close bipartisan vote — the former by a vote of 228-200 and the latter 224-200 — and are supported by President Biden.

    POJA Act

    As originally written, the POJA Act amends the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) to extend the prohibition of limiting, segregating or classifying by employers of employees to job applicants. The bill comes after recent rulings in the Seventh and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals that allow employers to use facially neutral hiring practices, which some have accused of being discriminatory against older workers. As such, the POJA Act amends the ADEA to make clear that the disparate impact provision in the original statute protects older “applicants for employment” in addition to those already employed.

    Before the final vote on the bill, the House also adopted an amendment to the POJA Act that would require the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to conduct a study on the number of job applicants impacted by age discrimination in the job application process and issue recommendations on addressing age discrimination in the job application process.

    Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act

    The Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act amends the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act to reauthorize and increase funding for programs focused on preventing family and domestic violence and protecting survivors. One provision addressing higher education authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to now include institutions of higher education among the entities eligible for departmental grants to “conduct domestic violence, dating violence and family violence research or evaluation.”

    Both the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act and the POJA Act now face the Senate where passage is uncertain as both require significant support from Republicans to bypass the sixty-vote filibuster threshold.

    CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of any actions or votes taken by the Senate on these bills.



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