Originally published in Mondoweiss

In one of the biggest displays of labor organizing against anti-Palestinian racism, the National Education Association’s (NEA) policymaking body voted on July 5 to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The vote was a product of years of grassroots organizing within the NEA. This activity within the union was bolstered by the growth of the Drop The ADL campaign, an initiative by a wide range of progressive organizations to educate communities about the ADL’s anti-Palestinian bias and opposition to free speech in schools. Despite the decision by 7,000 NEA members to cut ties with the ADL, on July 18 the union’s Board of Directors voted not to act on the resolution put forward by members.

In a press release, Educators For Palestine, one of the leading groups behind the initiative, denounced the decision by the Board of Directors, saying that it succumbed to “pressure from outside right-wing groups like the ADL,” and that the decision “harms union power.” However, the press release still claims the recent vote by the majority of members as a victory. This optimistic sentiment was echoed by several education activists who spoke to Mondoweiss.

Merrie Najimy, a co-founder of Educators For Palestine and leader of the NEA’s Arab-American Caucus, has not been deterred by the Board’s decision.

“It was a fundamental violation of union democracy and it’s caused harm to Jewish and Arab members, but it doesn’t undercut the victory that we had in passing this item,” Najimy told Mondoweiss. “That was a significant victory that stands because it signals a sea change in the rank and file wanting a new position in support of Palestinians.”

NEA President Becky Pringle published a letter in response, claiming that, “As the NEA does not currently have a partnership with the ADL, this would have constituted a forward-looking declaration.” The letter adds, “After consideration, it was determined that this proposal would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership, or our goals. Today’s vote by the NEA Board of Directors to not adopt this proposal completes NEA’s process.”

For their part, the ADL went on a media offensive immediately after the NEA vote in favor of the action item to cut ties with the ADL (NBI #39). In an interview with Fox and Friends on July 9, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt claimed that the NEA is “an organization that clearly has been overtaken by activists,” making a point to emphasize his delivery of the word “activists,” and going on to claim that teachers should not be using their classrooms to teach children “radicalism.”

Najimy said this line of attack is hypocritical.

“The right-wing is bringing activism into public education and onto our university campuses by determining ‘You can’t say gay,’ banning books, determining curriculum,” Najimy said. “Our real jobs as educators is to actually present information to children and teach them how to interrogate the past, how to interrogate events that are happening in front of them… and then how to draw their own conclusions.”

The ADL’s Attacks on Education

The top of the ADL’s website features a response thanking the NEA’s Executive Committee and Board for rejecting “the dangerous boycott of the ADL’s education materials.” The ADL describes itself as “A global leader in combating antisemitism, countering extremism and battling bigotry wherever and whenever it happens.”

The Drop The ADL campaign seeks to challenge this perception of the ADL. As the campaign’s website puts it, the ADL has “a history and ongoing pattern of attacking social justice movements led by communities of color, queer people, immigrants, Muslims, Arabs, and other marginalized groups, while aligning itself with police, right-wing leaders, and perpetrators of state violence.”

In an article published in Rethinking Schools, which marked the official launch of the Drop The ADL in Schools campaign, education activist Nora Lester Murad highlights how the ADL has a history of using unreliable and manipulated data as a basis for their research on antisemitism. The ADL also uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of antisemitism which falsely conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of the Jewish community. Leading civil rights organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have argued that the use of this definition poses a threat to free speech.

Several education activists who spoke to Mondoweiss recounted their direct experience with backlash from the ADL.

In an email, Marcy Winograd, retired NEA member and organizer with the feminist anti-war organization CODEPINK, described an interaction with an ADL supporter in California.

“After we testified before the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board, an ADL supporter denounced us for antisemitism, eliciting thunderous clapping from an after school prayer club. When I confronted one of the pastors outside, asking him if he supported Israel’s genocide the pastor parrroted the ADL’s line that there is no genocide.”

Other education activists who spoke with Mondoweiss said that this type of genocide denial and protest from ADL supporters has been the norm for many teachers, students, and activists who’ve worked to get ADL materials removed from schools across the country.

In response to the NEA vote, the ADL got hundreds of organizations to sign onto a letter urging the union’s Board and Executive Committee to reject its members’ vote. Greenblatt also privately met with NEA president Pringle. The details of the meeting have not been made clear to NEA members.

Judy Greenspan, a Jewish educator and longtime anti-Zionist, is the NEA member who brought NBI 39 to the floor at the NEA Representative Assembly. In a written response to Mondoweiss, she described the harassment that she and other pro-Palestine members faced after the vote.

“Everyone who spoke to the motion (including myself) was doxxed. Our pictures were spread around the internet in zionist circles, Our testimony was recorded (which was illegal and a complete break with NEA rules which forbids any recording or videoing inside the RA hall).”

As Najimy and others put it, the ADL’s backlash aligns with a broader movement in which right-wing actors are attacking student activism and union activity in education spaces.

“There’s a convergence of right-wing forces pushing the white and Christian nationalist agenda,” Najimy said. She described these forces as the Israeli Zionist attacks on liberated ethnic studies and DEI initiatives to prevent education that is critical of Israeli settler-colonialism, the broader right-wing anti-DEI movement which uses claims of “antisemitism” to further their attacks on DEI, and anti-union forces which use examples like the NEA members’ support for Palestine as an opportunity to attack unions.

“We see all of these putting deep pressure on public education because public education and higher education… is supposed to be the great equalizer. And if we can wipe out that equation, it’s moving us closer to the white and Christian nationalist agenda.”

Everyone who spoke with Mondoweiss said that despite the backlash from the ADL, they are seeing momentum continue to build in the aftermath of the NEA vote. There are ongoing discussions of how to most effectively use that momentum. Najimy said that an important next step is for NEA members to take up the campaign within their own schools across the country and organizing for the institutions of the union to take up the Drop The ADL campaign at the local and state levels.