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Stand against the bullying of K-12 professional educators’ organizations and oppose their complicity in censorship of Palestinians and criticism of Israel
Antiracist community organizations urgently call on educational associations to stand up for the right to learn and freedom to teach — and to oppose bullying and censorship of K-12 education by Israel advocacy groups that conflate legitimate and legal criticism of Israel with bigotry and discrimination of Jews.
Bad faith accusations of antisemitism by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis) and others harm the reputations, livelihoods and mental health of antiracist educators. They threaten schools and districts with sanctions. They undermine the free and open exchange of ideas that is essential to learning and democracy. In recent months, the ADL, CAMERA, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America and allied organizations have targeted national and state professional educators’ organizations and conferences including the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and MassCUE, the Massachusetts state affiliate of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
Professional educators’ organizations have enormous influence in our schools and, as a result, on our lives — a heavy moral responsibility. They keep educators current in their fields, publish resources, fund research into new pedagogical approaches to meet the evolving needs of students, and provide crucial collegial support for educators. When school districts give educators time and funding to attend conferences and workshops, they are recognizing the role that professional educators’ organizations hold in trust. The role is to provide resources that align with core principles of education – including equity, diversity, and justice – and space for educators to discuss them together. It is a role that must be defended against cooptation and efforts to undermine those core principles.
Speakers at educators’ conferences that talk about their own life experience as victims of Israeli colonialism, occupation, exile, or genocide or who support the inclusion of Palestinian history and narratives among others explored in school settings are expanding resources available to educators. They are doing a fundamental service by teaching the truth; they are not opposing any religious or cultural groups. We must oppose the relentless smear campaigns of the ADL and its allies – just as we challenge those who would ban books and other opponents of truth-telling.
Increasingly, false allegations of antisemitism are being leveled against Palestinian and other conference speakers, especially educators of color, who criticize Israel. This puts tremendous pressure on conference organizers to apologize, which affirms the false accusations and makes them complicit in anti-Palestinian racism and censorship. Educational organizations at all levels must be able to distinguish between criticism of a nation-state and bigotry or discrimination against Jews or any other people. Like classroom teachers, professional educators’ organizations should promote the exploration of a diversity of perspectives not silence them. This requires recognizing the difference between being uncomfortable when our beliefs are challenged and being unsafe.
Due to the importance of these issues, we pledge, and call upon others to:
- Resist politicized bullying intended to compel organizations to compromise their antiracist mandates.
- Call out bad faith accusations of antisemitism and lobby decision-makers to support educators and students who are unfairly targeted.
- Continue to provide and protect platforms for educators and students whose own backgrounds and/or professional expertise address Israeli colonialism or reflect Palestinian narratives.
- Cut ties with the ADL and other anti-Palestinian groups working in K-12 spaces (consider this watchlist).
- Strengthen policies and practices, including clarifying and/or developing vetting criteria that prevent the normalization of aggressively political and racist organizations in educational spaces.
- Recommit to inquiry education that promotes critical thinking, questioning by students, and constructive engagement with a diversity of ideas rather than censorship.
- Participate in actions that respect the freedom to teach, the right to learn, and the mandate to teach truth by resisting attacks on all groups, including African-American, Indigenous, immigrants, LGBTQ+, and others under attack by the racist right.
Signed by:
- Arlington (MA) for Palestine
- Families for Ceasefire Philly
- Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
- Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
- Jewish Boomers Against Occupation in Palestine
- Labor for Palestine National Network
- Making Mensches
- Muslim Counterpublics Lab
- Peace, Justice, Sustainability, NOW!
- Raising Luminaries
Click the arrow below for important context about recent events and our analysis that prompted the need for this statement.
Click here to read about the national implications for educators, students, and the infrastructure that upholds educational integrity
- From November 21-24, 2024
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) allowed CAMERA, an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate group, to exhibit and present at their national convention in Boston. There was a multi-pronged protest calling for the protection of Palestinian teachers and authors at the event and highlighting the danger of CAMERA using NCTE to gain visibility and credibility. NCTE caved to pressure from Zionist groups inside and outside NCTE, and allowed CAMERA to remain on-site, even as its actions violated NCTE’s own anti-harassment policy. After surveilling teachers and authors during the convention, CAMERA published slanderous articles misrepresenting information they got at the convention. See this specific Fact Sheet for additional details about what happened at the 2024 NCTE convention and relevant links. (CAMERA was also allowed to exhibit at the annual conference of the National Council for Social Studies that same weekend in Boston, but they never set up their table.)
- From December 4-7, 2024
The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) held their annual People of Color Conference (PoCC) in Denver. On December 11, a complaint letter was sent to NAIS from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federations of North America, and Prizmah. The complaint alleged that two conference speakers – Dr. Suzanne Barakat, former Executive Director of the Health and Human Rights Initiative and Ruha Benjamin, Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University – had made antisemitic remarks. Under pressure from these pro-Israel organizations, NAIS leadership immediately issued a widely reported apology. Mischaracterizing the remarks, it stated there is no room for antisemitism at NAIS conferences and promised to implement procedures to censor future content. Links to transcripts of the two talks and important commentary were made available by a Jewish attendee who said, “The narrative of what happened, amplified and distorted by people and organizations who were not even in attendance, describe a completely different conference than the one I actually attended.”
- Mid-December, 2024
The ADL was unsatisfied with NAIS’ apology and mobilized parents of private school students around the country to pressure NAIS for further action. On December 18, 2024, the Zionist Organization of America (ZoA) also pressured NAIS for additional concessions. On December 24, 2024, the ADL published a Parent/Caregiver Toolkit: Responding to the 2024 NAIS PoCC to help parents exert pressure on NAIS. (Zinn Education Project, an antiracist teaching resource, has since launched an action calling on NAIS to apologize to Barakat and Benjamin who have been unfairly smeared and severely harmed.)
- Around December 19, 2024
Massachusetts Computer Using Educators (MassCUE), the state affiliate of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), received a complaint from the ADL about alleged antisemitism at their conference two months earlier on October 17, 2024. Prior to the December ADL letter, a single individual, Michael Rubin, principal of Uxbridge (MA) High School, had expressed his dissatisfaction about a panel in a LinkedIn post on November 7. Rubin claimed, “What began as a keynote panel on digital equity devolved into an inappropriate platform for anti-Semitic rhetoric and one-sided political commentary. Instead of discussing educational technology and equity, attendees were subjected to inflammatory language including terms like “Jewish apartheid” and “perpetrators of genocide” – terminology that has no place in an educational technology conference.” The panel in question, “Equity Beyond the Surface” featured Dr. Sawsan Jaber, Founder, Education Unfiltered Consulting; De’Shawn Washington, Massachusetts Teacher of the Year; Yasin Kakande, Journalist and Author; Jo Persad, Panel Moderator, and it received a standing ovation. The accusations were particularly aimed at Palestinian educator Sawsan Jaber, who had previously spoken at MassCUE’s spring conference to rave reviews. To date, MassCUE has chosen not to make public video footage of the panel, which would have proven the accusations of antisemitism are false. We have obtained the footage and are making it available HERE so viewers can see that while speakers did criticize Israel (like human rights and legal experts around the world) they did not mention or dehumanize or criticize Jews as Jews, or engage in Holocaust denial, as was falsely reported in the press.
- January 6, 2025
The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (M.A.S.S), a co-sponsor of the MassCUE conference, notified members that it had severed ties with the technology education organization. MassCUE’s executive director, who had been tasked in her role with centering equity and broadening the diversity of membership, was put on leave, and the organization’s website was taken offline, MassCUE was a cornerstone of professional development for public school teachers and a valuable resource that appears to have been shut down; to date, its members have not received any notification or explanation about the status of the organization.
- The MassCUE example is important because it demonstrates the likelihood that the ADL, emboldened by their successful intimidation of NAIS, realized the traction they could get from accusations of antisemitism at the MassCUE conference, which had taken place a full two months prior. Sadly, their assessment seems to have been correct, because after internal disagreement at MassCUE, operations were ceased – sending a chilling effect throughout the state affiliates of ISTE and to other educators’ conferences.
These are just a few examples of pro-Israel political advocacy organizations attempting to control educators using fear tactics and wildly inaccurate claims of racism. There have also been articles, webinars and lobbying of policymakers falsely alleging that teachers’ unions like the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) are promulgating antisemitism both for teaching about racism against Palestinians and calling on their membership to oppose U.S. support for war.
In addition to these alarming and disingenuous attacks on educator professional organizations, many individual teachers across the country have also been doxxed and harassed for voicing pro-Palestinian views or simply for including or encouraging education about Palestinians in classrooms. Teachers and administrators have been suspended, reassigned, demoted, fired, or forced to resign in the wake of these personal attacks threatening the independence and efficacy of K-12 education for all students. We can expect these repressive tactics to escalate given the right-wing turn of the Trump administration.