U.S. News

The Anti-Defamation League has been a ubiquitous presence in U.S. schools for 40 years, pushing curriculum, direct programming, and teacher training into K-12 schools and increasingly into universities, often over the objections of students, parents and educators.

Now, the three million-member National Education Association has finally said no.

On July 6, the NEA’s 7,000-member Representative Assembly voted to cut all ties with the ADL.

The body approved a measure that the NEA ​“will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics.” The reasoning: ​“Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”

Union members speaking on the floor rejected the ADL’s abuse of the term ​“antisemitism” to punish critics of Israel, its use of hyperinflated statistics on hate crimes to gin up fears about Jewish safety, and its characterization of calls for Palestinian rights as ​“hate speech.”