Condemning Anti-Semitism At U.S. Universities

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY. Congratulating Matthew Gapinski for 42 Years of Dedicated Federal Service

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for his words.

Today, the Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing with the presidents of three universities: UCLA, Northwestern, and Rutgers.

At the hearing, I joined the Anti-Defamation League in calling for the resignation of at least one of them, but I will provide some reflection on what transpired today and what has transpired at several hearings that we have now had.

We have had the chance to hear testimony and question seven university presidents now, including Columbia, Penn, Harvard, and MIT. Two of those presidents, from Penn and from Harvard, have already resigned following the hearings.

What is striking about these hearings is just how difficult it is for these university presidents to answer in a straightforward way to the clearest questions of right and wrong. It is striking the way that they have been unable to take the most commonsense steps on their campuses to stop lawlessness and to curb this terrible rise in anti-Semitism.

When you look at the folks who testified today or, for that matter, any of the seven presidents we have heard from, I don't think there is any of us who would suggest that these individuals are themselves anti- Semitic or prejudiced, and, yet, they seem to believe that appeasing anti-Semites, appeasing anti-Semitic constituencies on their campuses and thereby institutionalizing, normalizing, to use the word that the Anti-Defamation League does, anti-Semitism at their universities, they seem to believe that is what they have to do in order to keep their jobs.

This is, itself, a fundamental failure of leadership and a reason to doubt the fitness of any of these particular individuals to lead major universities, but it also speaks to the overarching challenges we now face in American higher education where they feel the need, these leaders of our top universities, to cater to the most bigoted and backward forces at the expense of their own students' safety, well- being, and education.

I think it is vitally important that the Education and the Workforce Committee continues to shine a light on the horrible things that are unfolding at American universities, while at the same time trying to direct our higher education system in the direction of badly needed reforms because we have seen how many longstanding problems have gotten us to this point.

Mr. Speaker, I will go into a little more detail about what transpired today. I asked each of the three university presidents, the president of Rutgers, the president of Northwestern, and the chancellor of UCLA, if physically blocking a student from entering their campus on the basis of the student's race, ethnicity, or religion is an expellable offensive, and I was rather taken aback by the responses. Not one of them could give a simple ``yes,'' that is, by its very nature, an expellable offense.

Instead, they said it depends upon the circumstances, the context, and so forth.

I found that to be a rather shocking response. I think the correct response would have been: Well, yes, of course. If the facts show that someone is physically blocking a student from entering campus, is using force to deny them access to our university that they are paying tuition to, and they are explicitly doing so in order to exclude people of that person's race, ethnicity, or religion, that is by its very nature something that would mean you should never be able to set foot on that campus again, any individual who would engage in such conduct. Yet, not one of them could give that response.

What is worse is this, of course, is not a hypothetical situation. It is something that we saw happen repeatedly at several campuses and, in particular, at UCLA.

I played a video clip for the chancellor that showed exactly this happening: A Jewish student with a Star of David who was trying to gain access to his campus to go to class, who has his student ID card in his hand and a group of self-appointed enforcers lock arms and form a blockade to stop the student who tries to enter, who puts his hands in the air to show he means no harm, and they physically, by force, stop him from entering his own university.

I asked the chancellor of UCLA: Who are these people who formed these blockades? Are they students? He didn't know.

I asked: Have they been disciplined? He didn't know. It seems very clear that they got away with this absolutely monstrous conduct that should have no place in the United States of America.

To make things even worse, a member of the committee, the Representative from Minnesota, Congresswoman Omar, actually tried to minimize what had happened.

In her questions, she suggested that this wasn't such a big deal because there are other pathways available to that student. Apparently it is okay to block people from moving about, their freedom of movement, based upon their Jewish identity if there are other places that they are allowed to walk. It is absolutely unbelievable.

UCLA's response to this situation was, of course, deeply problematic in a number of other ways. The situation there was allowed to build and build and build. The encampment got larger and larger and larger, and eventually things spiraled out of control until eventually the chancellor did the right thing and called upon law enforcement to come and enforce the rules for those who refused to leave.

It never should have gotten to that point. Indeed, we now know that the police chief had advised the university not to allow an encampment, yet UCLA allowed it anyway.

Chancellor Block claims that there is a systemwide UC policy that prevented them from moving more quickly. If this is so, the University of California needs to change its policy.

If it is really true that the university will not seek the assistance of law enforcement until violence actually manifests itself, that is a deeply problematic policy on a number of levels. Number one, it allows for the violence to happen until you actually do anything to protect students. Number two, it allows for all manner of other illegal activity to continue unabated so long as those engaging in it characterize their actions as a protest.

We saw all kinds of illegal activity in this anti-Semitic encampment at UCLA. We saw self-appointed students set up checkpoints, as I mentioned before, stopping Jewish students from being able to get to class.

The university did very little, it would seem, to stop this from happening. Indeed, the chancellor couldn't even tell me what happened to the students caught on video who were responsible.

This particular university leader, Chancellor Block, has served for 17 years and is retiring. He will not be at that university very soon. I would leave it to the judgment of the UC system to decide what the consequences for him, in particular, should be, with just a few months remaining in his tenure.

I will say there is news just today that a new encampment has started at UCLA, and I would suggest that the chancellor needs to learn from what just happened and make sure that that is taken care of in short order.

Generally, I don't think it is my role to be deciding which university leaders should stay and which should go. Ideally, that would be decided upon using the appropriate channels and that when you have clearly fireable conduct, the board of regents, the governance boards, would take appropriate action.

Where I would draw the line on a broad level, on a general level, and say that anyone who crosses that line is unfit to lead a university is the line that was drawn by the Anti-Defamation League as well as the Brandeis Institute and others in the specific case of the president of Northwestern, who also testified today.

What was different about what happened at Northwestern from some other universities--and I believe Northwestern was the first prominent university to do this--is that the university president actually ended the encampment by giving the lawless members of that encampment what they wanted. He agreed to their demands. I want to go through in detail, just to have it on the record, what those demands were.

First, I will read you the statement from the Anti-Defamation League as well as the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs.

It says as follows: ``As the three leading organizations in the United States holding colleges and universities accountable for creating hostile environments for Jewish students, we are shocked and dismayed by the agreement Northwestern University President Michael Schill reached on behalf of Northwestern University with encampment protesters yesterday.

``For the last 7 months, and longer, Jewish Northwestern students have been harassed and intimidated by blatant anti-Semitism on campus, worsening since October 7.''

Yesterday, at the time this was written, ``President Schill signed an agreement with the perpetrators of that harassment and intimidation, rewarding them for their hate.

``For days, protesters openly mocked and violated Northwestern's codes of conduct and policies by erecting an encampment in which they fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and wreaked havoc on the entire university community. Their goal was not to find peace but to make Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. Rather than hold them accountable, as he pledged he would, President Schill gave them a seat at the table and normalized their hatred against Jewish students.

``It is clear from President Schill's actions that he is unfit to lead Northwestern and must resign. President Schill capitulated to hatred and bigotry and empowered and emboldened those who have used intimidation, harassment, and violence to achieve their ends. Instead of issuing fines and suspensions in accordance with university policies, he awarded protest groups with scholarships, professorships, and a renovated community home. Instead of permanently shutting down the encampment and making the campus safe for all, he told protesters they can stay until June 1. Instead of reaffirming a longstanding university policy rejecting the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign, he created new pathways to its implementation. And instead of holding the perpetrators accountable, he committed Northwestern to actively defend, protect, and shield students from anyone else, such as potential future employers who may choose to hold the protesters accountable for their harassing and discriminatory conduct.''

The statement concludes: ``A prestigious institution that is supposed to be preparing our students for the future catastrophically failed to teach responsibility, respect for community values, and the fundamental principle that no one is above the law regardless of how deeply or passionately they believe in their own cause.''

They reiterate: ``We call on President Schill to resign immediately and trust that if he fails to resign, the Board of Trustees will step in as the leaders the university needs and remove him.''

That statement was issued a couple of weeks ago--of course, before the testimony that we heard today. President Schill still has not resigned, and the board of regents still has not removed him. It can only be concluded that the board of regents is endorsing the institutionalization and normalization of anti-Semitism that President Schill is responsible for by appeasing these demands.

There is the substance of the demands, which are deeply rooted in anti-Semitism, and then there is also the means by which they were achieved, those means being force. This is what I found particularly upsetting about the agreement reached by this president, President Schill of Northwestern, as well as President Holloway of Rutgers: They congratulated themselves for it. They said this was the way to negotiate a peaceful resolution. As a matter of fact, the exact words of the president were that they negotiated with their students through dialogue rather than force, engaging our students with dialogue rather than force.

Every part of that statement is utterly preposterous. First of all, a lot of them weren't students. I believe he even admitted to that. Second of all, this was not dialogue. The president, for one thing, did not even consult with his own anti-Semitism committee to ask if they were okay with this agreement. In fact, six members of that committee resigned after he reached the agreement with the encampment.

When he was asked at the hearing today if he had consulted with Jewish students, he said that was impractical. What an utterly preposterous statement. He decides to change university policy in response to the demands of an anti-Semitic encampment, and he says it is impractical to even consult with Jewish students.

Engaging our students with dialogue rather than force--it wasn't just students. It was not dialogue; it was one-sided. The entire negotiation, as it was, was predicated on force. The only reason he talked to them at all is because they set up an illegal encampment that was used to terrorize students, and they refused to leave when they were ordered to.

What precedent does that set? What incentive does that set for others who want to achieve their objectives, even if they are unobjectionable objectives, that the way to get what you want on this campus is to use force, defy the rules, defy the law, refuse to leave when you are told to, to try to be as disruptive as possible?

What is worse is that after Northwestern University's president did this, we have seen this chain reaction where other universities are doing the same thing, one of which is Rutgers, whose president, President Holloway, was with us today. He reached a similar agreement. He said something similar. He said: ``We engaged students in a conversation that led to a peaceful resolution''--again, an utterly preposterous statement.

The entire negotiation was predicated on force. It was not a conversation. It was a one-sided agreement with only those who are willing to resort to the use of force in order to get their way.

I was glad to hear today, by the way--it was confirmed by President Holloway--that he is no longer under consideration to be the next president of Yale University, of which I am an alum. There are many of us who are deeply concerned about the message it would send if Yale, which has had many of its own problems when it comes to anti-Semitism on campus, accepted as its new president someone who was just responsible for institutionalizing anti-Semitism at his own university.

There have been others as well throughout the country, several of which are in my State of California. There has been one instance, at least, where there has been accountability.

The president of Sonoma State, after reaching an agreement with the encampment there with a number of deeply anti-Semitic provisions like cutting off study abroad to Israel and even scrubbing university materials of any reference to Israel, and then even appointing the encampment as a permanent governing council to enforce that agreement, that university leader was placed on leave and has now resigned. That was the right thing for the leader of the California State University system to do.

However, there are other campuses in California, in the CSU and UC systems, that have reached similar capitulation agreements with the lawless encampments on their campuses and who have followed this same script of rewarding the use of force, of institutionalizing and normalizing anti-Semitism, of setting a precedent that the way to get your way on their campuses is to break the rules, break the law, refuse to do what you are asked to do. They all need to face discipline, as well.

There were a number of other remarkable statements at today's hearing with the three university presidents, though, of UCLA, Rutgers, and of course Northwestern. In particular, the president of Northwestern said that he will not be commenting on the speech of their students, faculty, or staff, a completely preposterous statement.

This individual has commented on all manner of political issues. I was able to find a number of examples just googling on my phone as he said it. The idea that he wouldn't call out, fire, or condemn a high- ranking university official who makes overtly racist statements absolutely defies belief.

Incredibly, when asked by my colleague Burgess Owens if he would have dealt with a KKK demonstration in the same manner, he said he would not engage in a hypothetical, refusing to even condemn this most offensive of speech--or more than speech, of course, when we are dealing with the conduct that we have seen play out on these campuses.

The president also said--and the president I am referring to is President Schill of Northwestern--that a police option on that campus was not possible. This is how he justifies appeasing the demands of the encampment rather than enforcing the law.

I find it quite difficult to believe that there couldn't have been a sufficient police response coordinating with local law enforcement to ensure that those who were in the encampment left.

It is absolutely hypocritical when you look at the record of this president, President Schill, who actually reduced police and defunded police when he was the president of the University of Oregon.

The committee, I know, is committed to continuing this investigation of anti-Semitism across American higher education, but it is also important to understand the need for broad reform in higher education based upon what we have learned.

There have been some encouraging signs lately. We saw, for example, MIT just recently said it is no longer going to require so-called diversity statements in the faculty hiring process. Even the Washington Post came out with an op-ed opposing the use of these diversity statements in hiring.

I think our work is only just beginning. The hearings that we have seen so far have been deeply disturbing.

It is highly important that we continue them and that we continue to keep an eye on every university that is failing to adequately address anti-Semitism in order to protect the students, to protect their safety, and to protect their right to an education.

We also need to think about fundamental reform when it comes to academic freedom, when it comes to free speech, when it comes to faculty hiring, and when it comes to so many of the other issues related to even the value of a higher education degree in America today.

I truly believe this can be a turning point. America's universities have long been national assets that have helped us to become the greatest country in the world, the greatest economy in the world, the leader in innovation on all fronts, and that is now in danger.

I look forward to continuing to work with the committee and colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We had a number of colleagues across the aisle who asked very good questions and expressed appropriate concerns today, as well.

I look forward to working together to reclaim our universities as national assets rather than the liabilities that they have increasingly become.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a concerning situation in the world of artificial intelligence that has developed over the last couple of weeks following the release of OpenAI's newest ChatGPT model, which has demonstrated some truly breathtaking, amazing features and capabilities that are going to have wide-ranging applications that I think we are only just beginning to understand.

After that release, there has been an exodus from the company of employees who are there to focus on issues related to safety. The reason for this was stated by Jan Leike, who is the leader of the team at OpenAI responsible for safety and alignment issues.

This is what Jan Leike said: ``I joined because I thought OpenAI would be the best place in the world to do this research. However, I have been disagreeing with OpenAI leadership about the company's core priorities for quite some time, until we finally reached a breaking point.''

I believe much more of our bandwidth should be spent getting ready for the next generation of models on security, monitoring, preparedness, safety, adversarial robustness, superalignment, confidentiality, societal impact, and related topics. These problems are quite hard to get right, and I am concerned we aren't on a trajectory to get there.

Jan writes: ``Over the past few months, my team has been sailing against the wind. Sometimes we were struggling for compute, and it was getting harder and harder to get this crucial research done. Building smarter-than-human machines is an inherently dangerous endeavor. OpenAI is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all humanity. But over the past few years, safety culture and processes have taken a back seat to shiny products. We are long overdue in getting incredibly serious about the implications of AGI,'' meaning artificial general intelligence. ``We must prioritize preparing for them as best we can.''

This is what the outgoing leader of safety and alignment issues at OpenAI recently said on Twitter, on X.

I am not intending to criticize OpenAI. I have no basis to assess the veracity of the claims that were just read. I, like everyone else, have been truly dazzled by what the company has been able to accomplish.

I think that this exodus of safety employees and this particular testimonial for the person leading the alignment team should be a wake- up call for many of us who have perhaps not been giving this issue of safety and alignment in the development of artificial intelligence the attention that it deserves.

In fact, I don't know if there has ever been a time where the consequences, the stakes, of a particular issue are so wildly disproportionate to the small level of attention that is being paid to it.

The basic issue here is that as AI systems become more advanced, as their capabilities become more sophisticated, the risks are heightened as well when it comes to many things--when it comes to privacy, when it comes to confidentiality, when it comes to potential misuses, which are limitless, and when it comes to the alignment of those capabilities with the well-being of the machine's creator, with the well-being of humanity.

This is an issue that the company has been focusing on at OpenAI. They have, of course, this whole team there.

There has been some discussion about what percentage of their overall compute has been dedicated to it. If you believe the testimony here, it is less and less, but the company itself, as well as perhaps to a greater degree other leading AI companies, understand this to be an extremely important issue, especially as these models scale up and become more sophisticated and new capabilities emerge, sometimes perhaps in an unsophisticated way.

The important thing that has been understood by many is that we need to make sure our ability, our sophistication in aligning those systems with our own objectives, proceeds in a way that is commensurate to the sophistication of their capabilities.

I am concerned that that is no longer the case, that perhaps things are developing more quickly on the capabilities end than on the safety end.

I think the wake-up call that we need to take from what has happened at OpenAI is that we simply can't rely on any particular company, or even all of them collectively, to prioritize safety to the extent that is needed.

I do think there is some role for us here in Congress to catalyze safety research and to try to ensure the proper incentives for companies to invest in safety as much as they are investing in product development and other things.

There are some States, and perhaps even some folks here, who are already proposing new regulations that would hamstring this new technology, that would stand in the way of developing more advanced models. Personally, I think that is the wrong approach for a number of reasons.

First of all, it is not at all clear that it is going to actually be successful in limiting the development of these technologies, and if it is, it would only apply to us here in the U.S. in our jurisdiction whereas our potential adversaries in other countries could continue to develop this technology unabated and in a way that poses a risk to the United States, our competitiveness, and our national security.

Moreover, to try to block the further development of AI will limit the manifold benefits that are now appearing before us, which are limitless.

As these models become more and more advanced, so, too, do their applications in the fields of medicine, in the fields of transportation, and, basically, in any field that you can think of.

We have seen applications already, and these applications are only going to become greater and greater and have enormous potential to save lives, to extend lives, and to enhance the quality of life.

The position, from a humanist point of view, should be one of not trying to hold the development of that potential back but, rather, trying to ensure that it proceeds in a manner that unlocks the benefits while mitigating the risks.

Those risks will, perhaps, become most pronounced as we work toward what is commonly called AGI, which was referenced in that series of tweets, artificial general intelligence.

There is a lot of debate on this topic among people who know a lot more about it than I do, but there are many who believe that it is not that far away, that it is much closer than we might have thought even a few years ago--that is, the creation of an AI system that has the capacity to outperform human intelligence across multiple domains or across all domains.

What is more, once AGI is achieved, if, indeed, it is achieved, then the capabilities could well accelerate in a very rapid manner from there on out.

That is why many who focus on issues related to AI safety have urgently emphasized the need to get the safety question right before that threshold is crossed.

Indeed, when Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was here last year, I asked him straight up how close they were to developing AGI. He basically said they were one big breakthrough away. That was a while ago.

I don't think anyone really knows how close we are or what that will look like, but I think there is an urgent need to prepare for that day by doing everything we possibly can to ensure that as capabilities develop in an unpredictable way, we have done the groundwork to make sure that those capabilities are aligned to our objectives, serve human purposes, and don't have the potential to serve other purposes or to misinterpret their commands in a way that has grave consequences.

I have introduced a bill, a bipartisan bill, that I think is a modest proposal that will help us get there. It will have the National Institutes of Health create a grant program that will fund basic research into AI safety. I think that is something that would be helpful, that would be a start.

In fact, I ran the idea by the CEO of OpenAI itself, Sam Altman. He thought it was a good idea. I think that it would help us get moving in the right direction, but I think it is also important at the same time that we make sure that the companies themselves have the right incentives to prioritize safety and alignment in the way that is needed.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We also have an AI task force being led by my colleague from California Jay Obernolte, who has done some tremendous work in this area.

I think it is urgently important that we begin to think about our role in ensuring that artificial intelligence ushers in the best possible future while mitigating the risks that are in front of us. Recognizing Folsom Police Department's Special Investigations Unit

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to recognize some truly outstanding individuals from my district.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor to include the members of the Folsom Police Department's Special Investigations Unit for the Police Honor Roll. The SIU team consists of one sergeant, Sergeant Brandon Monsoor, and three detectives, Detective William Maslak, Detective Justin Cain, and Detective Andrew Graham, whose responsibilities include narcotics prevention and weapons enforcement along with fugitive apprehension. I believe that their work surrounding fentanyl poisonings throughout the last year is truly worthy of recognition.

Along with several other areas of this country, the city of Folsom has seen an increase in fentanyl-related deaths. These tragedies are the direct result of individuals who carelessly furnish this product to often unsuspecting customers on the illicit drug market.

In early 2023, the SIU team decided to address this issue by developing criminal homicide cases against drug dealers that knowingly sold this dangerous product. This was no small task, as these types of cases had never been attempted or prosecuted in Sacramento County. They began by coordinating with the Sacramento district attorney's office to determine the type of evidence that would be required to bring this type of case to conclusion. These cases are inherently difficult to prosecute. They require swift and relentless action by detectives upon notification of an overdose, a significant amount of digital evidence, and out-of-the-box investigation techniques.

In July 2023, SIU detectives were notified of a potential fentanyl poisoning within the city of Folsom. The victim was a 24-year-old female who recently moved to the area to begin work as a preschool teacher. The detectives worked all night to eventually identify her supplier, develop probable cause to arrest him for homicide, and coordinate with the district attorney's office. Approximately 48 hours later, her supplier was arrested for murder, the first case of its kind within Sacramento County.

Since that first case, the SIU team has successfully arrested three other individuals for manslaughter or homicide after knowingly supplying this dangerous drug to their customers. They remain the only investigative unit in our region to bring this type of case to the Sacramento district attorney.

The Special Investigations Unit has truly distinguished itself and had an incredible impact on the community we serve. I believe they have very much earned the right to be recognized on the Third District Police Honor Roll. Recognizing Rebekah Perez

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Rebekah Perez, an English teacher at Loyalton High School in Loyalton, California. Rebekah is a remarkable and gifted educator who enriches the lives of her students and her community alike.

Before accepting her position at her hometown high school 8 years ago, Rebekah taught in title I schools in southern California for 5 years. Rebekah is one of those teachers who changes lives for the better. Her advanced placement students have scored in record-passing rates at Loyalton High School.

As a former educator, I understand the essential role that a teacher plays in the lives of their students, and Rebekah has high expectations for her students. She provides excellent support to ensure they can meet those expectations.

Knowing that reading literature and participating in thoughtful discussions are essential for rural students to get a glimpse and understanding of the bigger world, its diverse cultures and complexity drives Rebekah's work.

Active in her community, she serves on the board of her church and as a 4-H project leader. Her big laugh and huge smile makes students, colleagues, and parents alike feel like they have come home and are deeply cared for. Rebekah's positive leadership at Loyalton is reflected in a sign she has made for her classroom. I love this. It says: ``Get excited, people.''

Whether teaching English, providing academic advisement, leading the accreditation process, serving as a senior class adviser, or coaching young people, Rebekah brings infectious, joy-filled excitement to all those around her.

Loyalton High School shines so bright because of her great work, and we are forever grateful that she has chosen to teach at Loyalton High School.

Therefore, in honor of her passion, dedication, and her commitment to her students' success, it is my privilege to recognize Rebekah Perez as the truly outstanding teacher that she is. Recognizing Elaina Stoll

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I wish to take a moment to recognize the outstanding and prominent educators of California's Third Congressional District.

I will briefly highlight a teacher from the Bishop Unified School District, Elaina Stoll, who has dedicated 34 years of her career to educating the students of her community.

Ms. Stoll graduated from Bishop Union High School in 1983 and then returned in 1990 to serve and spend two decades as a primary teacher. She later became a reading specialist for Bishop Unified and continued to further her education by obtaining her master's degree in education administration with an emphasis in reading.

Ms. Stoll has worked tirelessly on strengthening Bishop's Reading Intervention Program, implementing phonics-based small group instructional strategies, and creating systemic improvements across the grade spans.

She approaches her work pertaining to students with high levels of enthusiasm and love and strives to meet best practice standards. She is known for her unique ability to motivate others to meet the high standards set by her performance.

I commend Ms. Stoll for her exceptional dedication to education and to promoting student success and academic achievement.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Ms. Elaina Stoll for her significant contributions to the Bishop Unified School District and to the students of the Bishop community. Recognizing Elizabeth Isaacs

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I will take a moment to recognize Ms. Elizabeth Isaacs, a kindergarten teacher in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District at Oak Chan Elementary School.

Ms. Isaacs teaches kindergarten at Oak Chan and has been employed there since 2015. However, her experience goes back 19 years.

Ms. Isaacs' mission is to make the world a better place, and she finds herself continuously motivated by the positive impact she has on her students' lives.

Ms. Isaacs teaches in innovative ways to keep her students motivated and engaged and is passionate about instilling her students with the knowledge and tenacity that is needed to help each child reach their full potential.

Just the idea that she is contributing toward this development of her students brings her great joy and satisfaction.

Ms. Isaacs' students and the opportunity to teach kindergarten have contributed to her unwavering commitment to education. Every day, she comes to class feeling cherished, challenged, and fulfilled.

Growing up, Ms. Isaacs learned how education has the power to affect meaningful change in the world. Even as a child, she enjoyed playing school with her siblings, where she took on the role, of course, as the teacher.

Both of her parents were educators, and she grew up helping set up bulletin boards in her mother's classroom at White Rock Elementary in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. Additionally, she appreciated being able to observe her father's lectures as a professor at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers such as Ms. Elizabeth Isaacs in the United States Congress. Therefore, in honor of her passion, dedication, and belief in the transformative power of education, in honor of her commitment to her students' success, it is my privilege to recognize Ms. Elizabeth Isaacs as the outstanding teacher that she is.

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Mr. KILEY.

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