(RNS) — The nation’s largest teachers’ union has passed a measure calling its members to stop using, endorsing or publicizing any materials produced by the Anti-Defamation League, the antisemitism watchdog group that has long provided resources for public schools to teach about discrimination of all kinds.
The measure, which passed Saturday (July 5) at the annual assembly of the National Education Association meeting in Portland, Oregon, now goes to the NEA’s Executive Committee.
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Union members speaking at the assembly suggested the ADL has increasingly categorized criticism of Israel as antisemitism. The NEA accused the ADL of inflating its statistics by counting anti-Israel speech in its reports on antisemitism and calling defenses of Palestinian rights “hate speech.”
The NEA is only the latest group to disassociate from the ADL and to criticize its practices. Earlier this week, a group of Boston-based Jewish educators recommended that the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism reject draft findings for K-12 education in Massachusetts, in part because the draft relies on ADL’s “unreliable data about antisemitism.”
Last year, the editors of the website Wikipedia labeled the ADL as “generally unreliable regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The ADL countered by accusing Wikipedia of countenancing antisemitic and anti-Israel bias among some of its volunteer moderators.
Responding to Sunday’s NEA vote, the ADL said it was “profoundly disturbing that a group of NEA activists would brazenly attempt to further isolate their Jewish colleagues and push a radical, antisemitic agenda on students.”
The statement added: “We will not be cowed for supporting Israel, and we will not be deterred from our work reaching millions of students with educational programs every year.”
The ADL partners with K-12 schools primarily through its No Place for Hate, a self-directed, student-led program that allows schoolchildren to survey their school’s climate, sign a petition and implement other activities to challenge bias and bullying. The ADL’s website says the program has reached more than 2,000 schools and 1.8 million students.
Its lesson plan on antisemitism for grades six-12, however, relies on the ADL’s controversial audit of antisemitic incidents and on a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel. (The ADL lobbies for the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.)
Since Israel’s war in Gaza, following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has insisted that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. He has endorsed strong measures to end pro-Palestinian student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
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The NEA measure, which was adopted at a meeting attended by nearly 7,000 educators, said the union will “not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics. NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.”
A spokesperson said in an email that “NEA members will continue to educate and organize against antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and all forms of hate and discrimination.”