“Over the past 21 months of war, more than 17,000 children have reportedly been killed and 33,000 injured in Gaza,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell recently told the United Nations Security Council. “An average of 28 children have been killed each day, the equivalent of an entire classroom.” Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, gave this description of three of the children: “Hind pleaded for help for hours. Youssef was killed while watching cartoons. Yaqeen wanted to be a YouTube star – and died in a bombing.”
We at Rethinking Schools are heartbroken at the thought of a classroom of children being killed every day in Gaza by bombs the U.S. government supplies. Rethinking Schools has always advocated for the right to teach truthfully — and this is especially true when children are the targets of violence and scholasticide is being systematically carried out before the world’s eyes. We know that educators and their unions must do everything we can to stop this violence and empower youth with the knowledge they need to help make the world more just and peaceful.
We applaud the National Education Association’s leadership in supporting the ongoing Teach Truth campaign at a time when books are being banned, teachers silenced, and legislation is restricting students from learning the full story of our past and present. But teaching truth means confronting all forms of oppression — including the oppression of Palestinians — and acknowledging that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has worked to suppress honest discussions of Palestinian history and Israeli apartheid. Supporting Teach Truth means standing with those targeted for exposing genocide as it unfolds, which in turn requires honoring the Representative Assembly’s vote to drop the ADL. We urge NEA leadership to reverse course, respect the will of the Representative Assembly, and take a clear stand: against antisemitism, against anti-Palestinian racism, against genocide in Gaza, and against any organization — like the ADL — that targets teachers for telling the truth.
At the 2025 NEA Representative Assembly — the union’s highest democratic decision-making body — delegates from across the country voted to end the NEA’s partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), citing the ADL’s pattern of undermining social justice movements and supporting Israeli policies widely condemned as genocidal. However, NEA board of directors later overturned the vote, trampling on the will of thousands of elected delegates and silencing educators who stood up for Palestinian rights, academic freedom, and union democracy.
The NEA Representative Assembly is not a suggestion box. As the NEA itself explains, “The RA is the world’s largest democratic deliberative body and the top decision-making body for NEA’s nearly 3 million members.” To override its vote sends a dangerous message: that member voices, especially those from the grassroots, can be ignored when they challenge power or speak uncomfortable truths.
NEA leadership had an opportunity to respond with courage and clarity. They could have released a statement that:
- Reaffirmed our union’s commitment to fighting antisemitism and all forms of oppression;
- Explained why the ADL’s actions are incompatible with our mission to support educators and protect students;
- Defended the right to teach about Palestine, empire, settler colonialism, and genocide without fear of retaliation;
- And uplifted the Representative Assembly’s vote as a model of democratic, educator-led decision-making.
That didn’t happen.
But it’s not too late. The voices calling for justice — Palestinian, Jewish, Black, Indigenous, queer, Muslim, and working-class educators — aren’t going away. They are the future of this union. They are organizing in defense of academic freedom, in solidarity with Gaza, and in pursuit of a world where no child learns under occupation and scholasticide no educator is threatened for teaching about those crimes.
To the educators who led this campaign to drop the ADL: Your union should have stood with you.
And it still can.
This is a moment of profound consequence for the NEA. The decision to uphold or overturn the will of the Representative Assembly speaks not only to questions of process, but to our collective values as educators. As violence continues to devastate classrooms in Gaza and teachers around the country face growing repression for teaching truthfully, we must ask ourselves: What does it mean to advocate for justice in education? Rethinking Schools urges NEA leadership to reflect on the significance of this vote — and to trust in the moral clarity and democratic process that guided it. Honoring the Representative Assembly’s decision to drop the ADL is about aligning our actions with our shared commitments to human rights, to truth, and to the future we want to build — one where every child can learn and every teacher can speak with honesty and integrity.