United Voices is calling on public schools across Virginia to reject outgoing Attorney General Jason Miyares’ directive urging K-12 school systems to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — a definition that civil liberties advocates across the country have documented is routinely misused to silence constitutionally protected criticism of the Israeli government.

Miyares wrote to all Virginia K-12 school systems this week urging them to incorporate the controversial and widely criticized IHRA definition into school policy. Among the definition’s examples of antisemitism is the false claim that describing Israel’s 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a racist endeavor constitutes hate speech. The author of the IHRA definition has himself stated it was never intended for governmental use.

“We unequivocally reject antisemitism in all its forms,” United Voices said. “But Miyares’ attempt to impose the IHRA definition on Virginia schools has nothing to do with stopping bigotry and everything to do with punishing criticism of the Israeli government. Calling Israel’s documented ethnic cleansing ‘racist’ is not antisemitism — it is history.”

United Voices warned that any school district that uses the IHRA definition to discipline students for protected political speech — including criticism of Israeli government policy, advocacy for Palestinian rights, or support for the BDS movement — would be violating the First Amendment and should expect legal challenge.

The IHRA definition has been weaponized at universities, school boards, and government agencies across the country to shut down student organizing, cancel speakers, and punish faculty. It is not an antisemitism prevention tool — it is a censorship tool. Virginia’s students deserve better than an outgoing attorney general using his final days in office to import that censorship into their schools.

United Voices is urging Virginia school superintendents and school board members to reject Miyares’ directive, affirm their students’ First Amendment rights, and refuse to implement any policy that conflates political speech about a foreign government’s actions with religious hatred.