How did the largest labor union in the U.S. vote to break with the ADL? And what happens next?

JVP’s Digital Director Jason Farbman sat down with a member of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, to discuss the NEA delegation’s recent vote to cut all ties with the ADL. The union member, who chose to remain anonymous, is also a member of the Educators for Palestine caucus in the NEA and a public school teacher in Massachusetts. They discussed the organizing effort around this historic move, how they’re moving forward after the NEA’s executive board’s decision to overturn the vote, and the possibilities to expand organizing for Palestine into our workplaces even further.

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Jason Farbman: Let’s start with the most exciting part. Can you describe the room when you all voted to cut ties with the ADL?

Educator: Yeah, definitely. So the National Education Association, which is the biggest labor union in the country, has delegates from every state who come together once a year for what’s called the Representative Assembly — there’s like 7,000 people in one room. 

NBI (New Business Item) #39 came to the floor, which read, “NEA 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.”  

Judy Greenspan, who is an anti-Zionist Jew, presented the item, surrounded by a crowd of people wearing keffiyehs and Palestinian flags supporting them, all shown on a jumbotron because the room is so big. Judy talked about how it’s really dangerous for antisemitism to be conflated with anti-Zionism and criticism of the state of Israel, and that the ADL is not the social justice partner they claim to be. They shared that, as a Jew, they think it’s really important to be combating antisemitism, and the ADL is absolutely not the group to trust with that effort.

They also said that we as the NEA believe in DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion. Part of that means speaking up for Palestinians, and by partnering with the ADL, we’re not doing that. We’re breaking with our stance as an anti-racist union. There was lots of applause all over the room.

JF: Wow. Was there debate?

E: Yeah, for every NBI, speakers alternate between supporters and opposers. Some Zionist members got up to say that they felt targeted and they thought that this was antisemitic. And there were a number of powerful speakers, Jews and Palestinians and Arab Americans and other folks who reiterated the points that Judy made — that the ADL is not a social justice partner, it does not stand with the values of our union, and anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

JF: Fascinating.

E: Eventually, as is procedure, we took a standing vote, where people stand up or wave to show that they are in support of the motion, and then the same for those opposed. 

NEA leadership has been saying that the vote was very close. My perception was that it was close, but it was not that close. It was a very powerful moment, looking around and seeing that there were thousands of people in the room, rank and file members from all over the country, who agreed with us that the ADL should not have an influence over public education in the U.S.

When our president, Becky Pringle, declared that the business item had passed, there were loud cheers all over the room and the other folks who had been organizing were jumping up and down and cheering and waving our keffiyehs. It was a really powerful moment.

JF: That’s amazing. I’m also thinking about all those people now going back to their schools and workplaces, and I’m thinking about how you can organize an effort like this at scale. 

Can you talk about the background organizing here? Because something like this doesn’t just happen from nowhere. You don’t just stand up in the middle of a meeting and say something, and then all of a sudden, everybody’s like, oh, what a great idea.

E: Yeah. So, this is definitely years in the making.

About six years ago, if you even said the word Palestine at the Representative Assembly, you would be ruled out of order — which means that you’re saying something inappropriate, you’re done, and you can’t keep speaking. Back then, Arab American union members who had consistently tried to bring issues around Palestine to the floor were joined by anti-Zionist Jewish members, forming the Arab American caucus. 

From that caucus grew the Educators for Palestine caucus, which expanded exponentially as a result of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. This is the second year that it’s been an official caucus in the NEA. It’s made up of rank and file members from around the country, many of whom are pretty active in their state and local unions as well, and its formation really built on the experiences of these first few people who had been organizing around Palestine in the NEA for years. It’s a mix of Palestinians, Arab Americans, Jews, and other allies, and definitely a whole range of ages and lengths of time of being in the union, from decades to having only been involved for a few years. 

Last year, this group organized a few new business items, one of which was to increase education about the Nakba, which passed, but the rest were bundled by the NEA President and moved to the day that the NEA staff went on strike and shut down the RA.  In some ways, this was the first year we were able to move successfully.

I would also say a lot of this has built on the work of the Drop the ADL From Schools campaign, who have been coordinating with us.

JF: What does it mean to be organizing around Palestine in the workplace, as opposed to in your city or on a campus? 

E: One of the things that’s really powerful about union organizing and being based in the workplace is that, in some ways, it crosses identity groups in a way that brings a lot of strength and diverse skills and perspectives to organizing. And because teachers and educators are often really invested in equity and inclusion, educators are particularly ready to do workplace organizing, because we are already so committed to trying to provide the best opportunities and the most inclusive spaces for our students and our colleagues.

JF: And what does it mean to be organizing around Palestine particularly as educators, especially right now? 

E: Schools are always a microcosm of the larger society. So all of the issues and hate that comes up in the country and the world at large are also showing up in our schools. And I think that educators are, not necessarily uniquely, but particularly attuned to it, because there are already a lot of conversations in education on how to do anti-racist education, how to think about different global issues, and how to communicate around those issues in thoughtful ways with the students in our rooms. 

JF: Following that thread, what advice would you give to someone who wants to bring Palestine into their workplace or their union?

E: I think one way is to find the ways that your workplace is already interacting with this issue.  Another way, and this doesn’t have to be in your workplace, is to find the personal connection or the network that you have some power to make change in, whether that’s a faith space or your library or a different hobby that you do. Wherever you have a connection and some social influence, you can figure out whether there’s an angle to make that connection to Palestine organizing. 

What you find is that there are lots of ways that the U.S. and Israel are quietly intertwined. One example is the Israeli company Elbit — an arms manufacturer that also has subsidiaries in the U.S. that make medical supplies. On the surface, it‘s like gloves and pipette tips and medical research supplies, which seems benign on the surface, but when you follow the money, there’s a connection.  So there’s a whole healthcare workers for Palestine movement pushing against this, because the same company is funding arms manufacturing and bombs that go to destroy Gaza.

A group of rank and file members in the Massachusetts Teachers Association have also been doing research into our retirement funds, looking at how we can connect with local efforts to divest our pensions from any arms manufacturing. We successfully passed an NBI last year that called on the MTA to divest staff pensions from any business involved in arms manufacturing, which was an historic win. That’s a great workplace organizing opportunity, because many workplaces have retirement funds. You can start with looking into where those funds are invested and start campaigns to divest them from Israeli genocide and arms manufacturing.

JF: Let’s talk about moving forward. Despite this historic vote from the NEA delegation to cut ties with the ADL, the NEA’s executive board just announced that they’re reversing this decision, after a lot of pressure from the ADL and other groups. Can you speak to that reversal and what you see as the next step there?

E: Yeah. The first thing I want to highlight is that we definitely still see this as a victory. This is a huge tidal shift in people’s understanding and support for Palestine and understanding of the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. 

Even though the board has overturned this for now, it’s just the beginning. We’re not done. We’ve already seen so much progress, and we’re not going to stop here. Our next steps are to bring this fight to the state and local levels, where we’re hoping to introduce similar measures to cut ties with the ADL.

If people are interested, anyone can bring this to a school committee or a school board and pass something in their city or town to do the same thing. And you can reach out to educators in your community, because educators often feel pretty isolated speaking out about Palestine, and having more support is really helpful with that. NEA members in particular can join us by following the Educators for Palestine page on Instagram and filling out our new member form.

Of course, we’ll definitely be back at the Representative Assembly next year.

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Act now: Email the NEA to oppose the reversal of this historic decision.

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Why we need to reject the ADL.