Yesterday afternoon I wrote about President Trump’s plan to issue an executive order aimed at anti-Semitism. The NY Times was the first to report on the executive order and reported that, in order to allow the government to withhold funds from groups deemed anti-Semitic, Trump’s EO would redefine Judaism as a nationality. Here’s a bit of the NY Times’ story:

Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the department can withhold funding from any college or educational program that discriminates “on the ground of race, color, or national origin.” Religion was not included among the protected categories, so Mr. Trump’s order will declare that Judaism may be considered a national origin.

The Times also highlighted this claim in a tweet yesterday:

President Trump will sign an executive order defining Judaism as a nationality, not just a religion, thus bolstering the Education Department's efforts to stamp out "Boycott Israel" movements on college campuses https://t.co/0avw7eseMc

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) December 10, 2019

This quickly caused a major freak-out on the left among journalists and politicos who suggest this was anti-Semitic and possibly part of a larger fascist plan to redefine American Jews as something other than American citizens.

My nationality is American, and this feels like it’s gonna ultimately be bad for the Jews. https://t.co/uUQyMtuYEP

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) December 10, 2019

It began with the notion that Jews were a separate nationality….

Nazi Germany expelled Jews, contrary to Jeff Sessions claim https://t.co/KjZMT74AKl

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) December 11, 2019

I am a fourth-generation American. That is my nationality. I am also a Jew. That is my religion. I am not here for this Fascist attempt to call my #Judaism a nationality. This is how the Holocaust started. I am not being hyperbolic. Study the history. Quickly. #NeverAgainIsNow

— Caroline Rothstein (@cerothstein) December 11, 2019

Trump’s executive order defining Judaism as a nationality smells like something sinister that Stephen Miller is the brainchild of. And yes I am sadly aware he is Jewish.

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) December 11, 2019

https://twitter.com/mvzelenks/status/1204546926424838145

So…then Jews are of another nationality and thus…foreigners and can be removed, is that also the idea? Are we having racial laws to decide who is a Jewish “national”? Curious. https://t.co/YbO7baSLhl

— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) December 11, 2019

As Trump plans to sign an executive order classifying Judaism as a race or nationality, remember that in Hitler’s first written comment in 1919 on the so-called Jewish Question, he likewise defined the Jews as a race and not a religious community.

— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) December 11, 2019

https://twitter.com/erinbiba/status/1204555646424760321

WAKE THE FUCK UP EVERYONE! First ICE and the detention centers, and now this ??? This is like some shit Hitler did before he sent ppl off to be EXTERMINATED. I’m a Jew, it’s not a nationality. What in the actual fuck is happening ?! https://t.co/38DfaXFzBj

— Anna Yvette 🦄 (@annayvettemusic) December 11, 2019

I’m going to stop now but I could go on like this for a long time. And notice that many of these tweets received thousands of likes and retweets. The NY Times story set off a partisan panic. Today Jewish Insider got a copy of the executive order and, surprise, there’s nothing in it about redefining Jews as a nationality:

Initial reporting indicated that the order would include language defining Judaism as a “national origin,” setting off a frenzy among major Jewish organizations, activists and lawmakers. The draft text of the order obtained by JI makes no such reference.

Time for a clean up on aisle six.

The freakout over this was bad not just because it was based on poor reporting. It was bad because it will have scared real people. Anyone who did a viral tweet about Trump redefining Jews as a nationality has an obligation to correct, so those people won't be. https://t.co/IKY1KQQVqu

— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) December 11, 2019

To their credit, many on the left have begun correcting this today:

https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1204792506040422406

This is why I am so annoying about the need for the press to be scrupulously accurate and _careful._ If the EO does not in fact redefine Jews as a nationality, the initial reports fanned an unnecessary freakout. https://t.co/rPwNpfCqK9

— Dara Lind (@DLind) December 11, 2019

Just read the executive order over. It does *not* redefine Judaism as a national origin. The Times fucked this one up. https://t.co/nJtyco5dHB

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) December 11, 2019

Vox has a story about it here and Slate has one titled “No, the Trump Administration Is Not Redefining Judaism as a Nationality. The piece states:

The New York Times’ reporting provoked anger among many Jews, who feared that an order to “effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality” would stoke anti-Semitism. But the order does no such thing. It restates the federal government’s long-standing interpretation of Title VI to encompass some anti-Jewish bias.

As for the NY Times, it hasn’t issued a correction on the story that caused the freak-out but it has edited the piece:

https://twitter.com/osvaknin/status/1204824577660145669

This is one of those journalistic errors that would not have been made if not for the left-leaning media’s pre-existing hostility to Trump. If the Times had been told a similar story about an EO to be issued by President Obama (and this appears to be based on Obama-era policy) the paper would have carefully checked the “nationality” claim before printing it. But because Trump is presumed to have bad intent at all times, they ran with an explosive claim that wasn’t true. Great work, guys! I wonder why so many Americans don’t trust the media?