There is a “distinct and serious concern” about how the National Education Association, the largest U.S. labor union, treats its Jewish members, according to a report that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released on Wednesday.
“Children are struggling to read and to do basic math,” stated Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the committee. “Instead of helping students succeed, teachers’ unions are injecting a dangerous, anti-American agenda into our classrooms.”
“Parents deserve to send their children to school without worrying that they will be indoctrinated with diversity, equity and inclusion and taught that Americans have ‘misplaced faith’ in our institutions,” added the senator, who lost his bid for another term in May.
The report stated that various Jewish members from the union told the committee that “they feel increasingly threatened and ostracized.” (JNS sought comment from the union.)
“For example, after the NEA endorsed resources that members say erased Israel off the map, some Jewish members sought to leave the organization but were told their decision was ‘short-sighted,’” the report stated.
In October 2025, the union emailed its members a “native land digital map” that depicted all of modern Israel as “Palestine” as part of a theme on “indigenous lands.”
The email linked to a website with a “landing page for a variety of articles that feature distortions and antisemitic claims about the Holocaust, contain strong Nazi apologism and promote Oct. 7 denial,” the Senate panel said.
Union representatives allegedly targeted Jewish members at schools and told them that “Oct. 7 has been debunked” and “antisemitism is only swastikas and nothing antisemitic is happening here,” according to the report.
The report also stated that there was Jew-hatred at the 2025 NEA Representative Assembly, where Jewish delegates alleged that union members harassed them. Members surrounded a Jewish member and asked, “How do you feel about babies dying in Gaza?” per the report.
The report noted that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched a probe of the association this year after the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law alleged that there is “sustained” harassment of Jews at the union.
The report also examined the union’s “political and ideological advocacy,” including its partnership with the Zinn Education Project and one of the project’s parent organizations, Rethinking Schools, in curriculum development.
The union has collaborated with the Zinn Education Project in its “teach truth” campaign, in which participants are directed to agree with a list of positions, including that Israel is committing an “unfolding genocide” in Gaza, according to the report. By partnering with the campaign, the NEA was “affirming these demands,” it stated.
Rethinking Schools offers a “Teaching Palestine” textbook that urges standing against Israeli “apartheid” and boycotting the Jewish state, the report stated. The textbook also has “an American ‘cowboy’ standing over a dead Native American while holding a gun” and a cartoon showing “an Israeli soldier standing over a dead Palestinian in a similar manner,” the report said.
The report noted that the union partners with Education International, which has “unequivocally taken a pro-Palestinian stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including issuing a rebuke for Israeli retaliation in Gaza just one week after Oct. 7.”
Becky Pringle, the union’s president from Sept. 1, 2020, until the end of last month, also serves on Education International’s executive board, according to the report.
The union has taken several steps to address Jew-hatred, but “it still has not adequately implemented internal safeguards for protecting Jewish members or responding to their concerns,” the report said.
“These findings warrant continued congressional oversight and greater institutional accountability,” the report stated. “With respect to the NEA, Congress should evaluate whether its current activities remain consistent with the purposes of its federal charter and whether additional transparency or governance measures are necessary.”
