USA
US teachers’ union rejects proposal to cut ties with ADL
The executive committee of the largest teachers’ union in the US shot down a motion to ban the ADL over its perceived Israel bias
July 22, 2025 10:34
The executive committee of the largest teachers’ union in the US shot down a motion to ban the ADL over its perceived Israel bias
July 22, 2025 10:34The largest teachers’ union in the US has rejected a proposal to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) after weeks of debate over whether the organisation’s Israel advocacy and role in shaping discourse on antisemitism still belongs in American classrooms.
After a narrow majority of delegates in the National Education Association (NEA) voted in favour of a measure to bar members from using the ADL’s education materials about the Holocaust and antisemitism earlier this month, NEA President Becky Pringle announced on Saturday that the organisation’s executive committee had voted against implementing the proposal.
“In our review, NEA considered multiple factors, including the rationale and concerns behind the proposal, its relationship to our policies and values, and how this would affect students, our members, our work, and our mission to champion excellence and justice in public education,” Pringle said in the statement. “We consulted with NEA state affiliates and civil rights leaders, including Jewish American and Arab American community leaders, and we also met with ADL leadership.”
The proposal, which recommended that the NEA “not use, endorse, or publicise materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or participate in ADL programmes”, was ultimately rejected on the basis of the NEA’s commitment to stand against antisemitism and uphold freedom of speech, according to Pringle’s statement.
“There is no doubt that antisemitism is on the rise,” she said. “Without equivocation, NEA stands strongly against antisemitism. We always have and we always will. Our Jewish students and educators deserve nothing less.
“Our democracy depends on freedom of speech and a great education depends on academic freedom, and inclusive and respectful debate. NEA opposes efforts to shut down debate, to silence voices of disagreement, and intimidation. We recognize the underlying concerns of the authors and supporters of the proposal, and we are committed to ongoing discussion with our community.”
The ADL, an antisemitism watchdog organisation that has been working for nearly 40 years to help schools develop course curricula on the Holocaust and antisemitism, said in response to the endorsement of the motion earlier this month that the NEA would be “stripping schools of trusted, time-tested resources that help educators teach about the Holocaust, address antisemitism, and combat all forms of hate,” should the proposed ban be implemented.
The initial motion was voted on during NEA’s 2025 Representative Assembly in Oregon in early July. The recommendation was then sent to NEA’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors – “representing the broad and diverse membership of the NEA, including representatives from every state,” according to Pringle’s statement – who voted against its implementation.
NEA delegates, whose more than three million members include classroom teachers, education support professionals, higher education faculty and retired educators, were critical of the ADL’s “abuse of the term ‘antisemitism’ to punish critics of Israel” and its use of “hyperinflated statistics” on antisemitic hate crimes to drive up fear about Jewish safety, as well as its “characterization of calls for Palestinian rights as ‘hate speech’”, according to reports from the assembly meeting.
However Pringle acknowledged NEA delegates’ concerns about the ADL’s involvement in defining school curricula in her statement on Saturday, adding that “Not adopting this proposal is in no way an endorsement of the ADL’s full body of work” and urging the ADL to “support the free speech and association rights of all students and educators.”
“Going forward, the NEA will use a diverse and knowledgeable group of NEA practitioners to review materials that we use in relation to antisemitism curriculum and tools to combat antisemitism,” Pringle said.
Though the ADL does not currently have any partnerships with the NEA that would be affected by the measure to cut ties, the two groups have collaborated on rights-related coalition letters together in the past.
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