As longtime educators and advocates for educational excellence, we embrace the importance of supporting schools to tackle urgent questions of racism, injustice, and all forms of bigotry. We believe all our students have the right to be safe, to belong, and to develop as critical thinkers and constructive advocates in our diverse world.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has long marketed itself as an expert advisor to school communities on antisemitism and other forms of bias. However, despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.
The ADL is a divisive political interest group that:
- sidelines historical, contextual, and systemic analyses of bias and racism in their curricula, focusing instead on individual feelings and actions;
- restricts genuine inquiry in classrooms with pedagogy and content that leave little room for truly questioning assumptions and debating diverse perspectives on a wide range of topics;
- distorts the definition of “antisemitism” in ways that stoke fear among many Jews and pit Jewish comfort against Palestinian rights;
- pushes local, state, and federal educational policy that defends Israel at the expense of the rights of Palestinians, other people of color, and Jews who reject ethnonationalism;
- attacks schools, educators, and students with bad-faith accusations of antisemitism in order to silence and punish constitutionally-protected criticism of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism.
Like policymakers and major media outlets, schools mistakenly rely on the ADL as a credible source of information about what constitutes antisemitism and its extent in the United States today. But analysis by scholars and journalists makes it clear that the ADL systematically distorts people’s understanding of antisemitism by including criticism of Israel as an indicator of hatred toward Jews. They distort the prevalence of antisemitism by including legal, nonviolent Palestinian solidarity actions as “bias incidents” in their statistics. By the ADL’s own count, some two-thirds of the bias incidents since October 7 have related to Israel.
For all of these reasons, we ask you to reconsider your partnership with the ADL.
We further urge you to join in nationwide efforts to drop the ADL from schools by taking the following actions:
- Cut all ties with the ADL, including use or endorsement of their curricular materials, participation in their programs, and engagement in their professional development offerings;
- End contracts with the ADL as consultants on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) policy, programming, or bias incident response – even when services are offered free of charge;
- Stop referencing the ADL’s discredited statistics, and stop sending data or information of any kind to the ADL;
- Ensure that all your institutional relationships and contracts truly uphold and promote principles of equality and dignity for all students who may be the targets of racism or bigotry of any kind.
This article, “The ADL is Not a Social Justice Partner for Schools,” in Rethinking Schools describes in more detail some of the ADL’s problematic practices in schools. We hope it will serve as the basis of further conversations.
Signatories:
- 18 Million Rising
- Abolitionist Teaching Network
- American Friends Service Committee
- Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)
- Black Lives Matter at School
- Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies
- Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
- DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving
- Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)
- Jewish Voice for Peace
- Movement for Black Lives
- Movement of Rank and File Educators
- MTA Rank-and-File for Palestine
- Palestine Legal
- Palestinian Youth Movement
- PARCEO
- Rethinking Schools
- TeachingWhileMuslim
- Teach Palestine Project of the Middle East Children’s Alliance
- The Palestinian Feminist Collective
- United American Indians of New England (UAINE)
- US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
- Al-Awda PRRC
- Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
- American Muslims for Palestine – NJ
- Arab American Civic Council
- Black Lives Matter Paterson
- CAIR NJ
- California Scholars for Academic Freedom
- Dallas Peace and Justice Center
- EduColor
- Generation Common Good
- IfNotNow Boston
- Islamophobia Studies Center
- Jews Against White Supremacy UCSC
- Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
- Judaism On Our Own Terms (JOOOT)
- Making Mensches
- MapSO Freedom School
- Muslim Counterpublics Lab
- Muslim Justice League
- Muslims for Just Futures
- National Arab American Women’s Association
- Nevadans for Palestinian Liberation
- NorCal Sabeel
- NYC Educators for Palestine
- Palestine Arab & Muslim Caucus of CFA
- Palestinian American Community Center
- Philadelphia Parents for Palestine
- Radical Elders
- Radical Teacher
- Raising Luminaries
- Rutgers Faculty for Justice in Palestine
- Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
- Saphron Initiative
- Sawa – Newton-Area Alliance for Peace and Justice
- Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
- Teach for Liberation
- The Justice Coalition Action
- The Progressive Classroom Project
- UMass Boston Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine
- UnKoch My Campus
- VietRISE
- Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR)
- Warm Cookies of the Revolution
To Sign this Open Letter:
- Organization can sign this letter here: Organizational Signatory Form
- Individuals can sign this letter here: Individual Signatory Form
Robert Jenrick says Star of David should be displayed at every point of entry to the UK
Robert Jenrick has said the Star of David should be displayed at every point of entry to the UK to show “we stand with Israel”.
The Tory leadership frontrunner told a Conservative Friends of Israel event he wanted Britain to be “the most welcoming country in the world for Israelis and the Jewish community”.
He said that, while immigration minister, he had pushed for Israelis travelling to Britain to be able to use e-gates. He said this would mean that at “every airport and point of entry to our great country”, there was a Star of David, as a “symbol that we support Israel”.
On stage at the event, Mr Jenrick wore a black hoodie emblazoned with the words “Hamas Are Terrorists”, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Mr Jenrick also used his remarks to promise that, if he became prime minister, he would move the British embassy to Jerusalem.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/robert-jenrick-israel-tory-conference-b2621106.html
“sidelines historical, contextual, and systemic analyses of bias and racism in their curricula, focusing instead on individual feelings and actions;” What in the world does this mean? Why are bias and racism wrong at all, if not because of how the affect people’s “individual feelings…?”
“restricts genuine inquiry in classrooms with pedagogy and content that leave little room for truly questioning assumptions and debating diverse perspectives on a wide range of topics;” What assumptions does it not want questioned? That anti-Semitism exists at all?
“Stop referencing the ADL’s discredited statistics, and stop sending data or information of any kind to the ADL” What ADL statistics are discredited, and how were they discredited?
“But analysis by scholars and journalists makes it clear that the ADL systematically distorts people’s understanding of antisemitism by including criticism of Israel as an indicator of hatred toward Jews.” The same edition of Mondoweiss that carried this article had another one which celebrated the Iranian attack on Israel, and it has run probably hundreds in the last year alternately celebrating and denying the orgy of kidnapping, rape and murder of Jews (“Jewish dogs”) in which Hamas indulged last October 7.