Overview:
The NEA voted to end its partnership with the ADL, citing concerns over biased materials and the ADL’s attacks on educators advocating for Palestinian rights, sparking national debate over the role of politics in public school education.
The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, has voted to sever the partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a civil rights group focused on combating antisemitism, according to an NEA spokesperson. This would call for the union to no longer use ADL materials on antisemitism and Holocaust education.
“As educators, we are committed to ensuring students of every race, religion or national origin have safe and welcoming spaces to learn and grow,” says NEA President Becky Pringle. “The National Education Association and its members are unequivocally committed to the cause of educating, organizing against, and combating all forms of hate and discrimination, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias. This is a fundamental principle we will never abandon.”
The proposal, titled New Business Item 39, was preliminarily adopted by union representatives at the 2025 Assembly in Portland, Oregon, on July 5. Since this item is considered a “sanction item”, there is an automatic referral to the NEA Executive Committee.
“In a narrow vote of over 6,000 NEA members at the 2025 NEA Representative Assembly, delegates voted to forward to the NEA Executive Committee a recommendation that the National Education Association not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or participate in ADL programs,” an NEA spokesperson said Wednesday.
Nea spokesperson
In an official response, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called the NEA’s endorsement “profoundly disturbing.”
“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 group said. “It is our understanding there’s an internal NEA process that deals with issues like this, and it is far from a completed process.
The NEA represents approximately three million educators across the United States and has affiliate organizations in every state, as well as in more than 14,000 communities nationwide. The conference in Oregon drew over 7,000 attendees, representing more than 300,000 educators worldwide.
“The National Education Association and its members are unequivocally committed to the cause of educating, organizing against and combating all forms of hate and discrimination, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bigotry,” the NEA spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.
Speaking on the Assembly floor, Delegates repeatedly rejected the ADL’s use of the term “antisemitism”, saying that it was used to punish those critical of Israel and inflated statistics on hate crimes about safety for Jewish people. Some Delegates spoke about the ADL attacking anti-Apartheid and Black Lives Matter movements.
In a statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) applauded the move as a step toward a non-biased, politically driven agenda.
“We welcome the NEA’s vote to stop exposing public school students to biased materials provided by the Anti-Defamation League due to its long history of spreading anti-Palestinian rhetoric, using false allegations of antisemitism to silence advocacy for Palestinian human rights and opposition to Black movements for racial equality, including Black Lives Matter and the South African anti-apartheid movement,” their statement read. “The ADL has only become worse under its increasingly unhinged director Jonathan Greenblatt, who has repeatedly smeared and endangered students in recent years. This principled move is a significant step toward fostering respect for the rights and dignity of all students in public schools, who must receive an education without facing biased, politically-driven agendas.”
The relationship between NEA affiliates and the ADL has been strained by attacks on the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) after they used teaching materials about Palestinian history. The ADL characterized the materials as antisemitic and accused teachers of glorifying terrorism. This led to public denouncements, legislative attacks, and threats against union members. In 2024, the ADL questioned the National Association of Independent Schools when they offered keynote talks on human rights, including Palestinian rights, by experts Suzanne Barakat and Ruha Benjamin at its 2024 conference.
In the 2024 school year, the ADL provided 5 million students with educational materials and programs that include content on antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish identity, according to the organization’s website.
This vote is now automatically referred to the NEA Executive Committee for an impact study and further consideration under NEA rules regarding sanctions and boycott.
