Education Policy Brief #213 | November 10, 2025
Summary
Educators who are critical of the Israeli government or the occupation, or who voice support for Palestinian statehood, are increasingly at risk of disciplinary action or even job loss. Extremist pro-Israel groups are advocating for and winning statutory and regulatory limits on educational content critical of Israel, all under the guise of fighting rampant Antisemitism. Even the use of pro-Palestinian slogans like “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” on social media has led to teachers being placed on leave. Educators and free speech advocates are organizing to fight back, and a recently approved law in California, ostensibly to curb antisemitism, is being challenged in federal court by the ADC.
Analysis
The House Committee on Education and Workforce recently opened an investigation into whether the National Education Association (NEA) is “contributing to antisemitism among its members and in classrooms across the United States.” The investigation is in response to allegations of anti-Semitism against the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA).
The NEA’s Representative Assembly had initially rejected a set of holocaust education materials promoted by the pro-Israel Anti-Discrimination League, due to a determination that the materials were biased. Although the NEA leadership overturned the initial determination after public pressure, lawmakers have expressed concern about an NEA handbook that says the group will “educate members about the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism” and promote “free speech in defense of Palestine at K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. Investigators are demanding that the union give them all communications, documents, or meeting minutes that include the words “antisemitism,” “Israel,” “Israeli,” “Palestine,” or “Palestinian,” since Oct. 7, 2023.
Committee chairman Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) said in a statement that the committee is weighing “legislation to specifically address antisemitic discrimination within labor unions and to combat antisemitism in federally funded schools.” He referenced another teachers’ union that has come under fire over its “anti-Israel” agenda. After the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) launched a fundraising campaign for ANERA, a 50-year-old Gaza humanitarian aid organization registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, it was accused of “working with Hamas” by the radical Zionist North American Values Institute, whose mission is to “mitigate and eventually overcome the impacts of extreme social justice ideology in their children’s classroom.”
Dr. Maura Finkelstein, a Jewish tenured associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania lost her job after a January 2024 social media repost related to Zionism. The American Association of University Professors investigated her firing concluded that the College, in “dismissing Professor Finkelstein from the faculty solely because of one anti-Zionist repost on Instagram, acted in violation of AAUP-supported principles and standards of academic freedom and due process.” In addition, “the administration’s hasty action, facilitated by the monitoring and dissemination of Finkelstein’s social media posts by administrators, has severely impaired the climate for academic freedom at Muhlenberg College.”
In Massachusetts, a legislatively mandated Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism approved a controversial set of educational and training recommendations related to the Holocaust and antisemitism. The recommendations reference the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (ILHRA) definition of antisemitism, which advocates have long argued conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. In a public response, educators from Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff and Together criticized the recommendations as ineffective and warned they could undermine safe learning environments for both students and teachers.
In California, a fierce battle erupted over AB 715, a bill sponsored by the Jewish Legislative Caucus ostensibly to address rising antisemitism in schools. A large statewide coalition organized to oppose the bill, which, in its original version, tied all Jewish students to Israel and elevated accusations of antisemitism for treatment different from other types of bias.
The California Coalition to Defend Public Education (CCDPE) organized a broad statewide coalition including teachers’ organizations, parents’ groups, civil rights groups, religious congregations, racial justice organizations, and supporters of ethnic studies to lobby hard against the bill and raise awareness of its unequal treatment of students and censoring of teachers. The powerful California Teachers Association eventually opposed the bill, delaying its progress, and the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union also rejected AB715 as infringing on free speech.
They weren’t able to stop the bill, but did get some of the worst provisions amended. Still, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is seeking to have it overturned in federal court on First Amendment grounds. Plaintiffs include teachers and families who want accurate instruction and robust debate about modern Middle East history, including Palestinian perspectives. Their complaint alleges SB 715 recommends teaching standards that “repeatedly conflate criticism of the State of Israel and of Zionism with antisemitism—for example, by deeming it ‘antisemitic’ to question Jewish people’s right to a majority state in a region inhabited by an equal number of Palestinians.”
In its Statement on Legislation Restricting Teaching about Race the AAUP comes out strongly against these types of statutory limits on educational content, saying “When politicians mandate the academic content that faculty can and cannot teach or the scholarly areas they can or cannot research or study, they prevent colleges and universities from fulfilling their missions. Such restrictions …portray robust academic inquiry and teaching as dangerous, deny students the opportunity to learn, and undercut the purpose of higher education. We therefore urge the defeat of these legislative initiatives and others of their kind to protect the academic freedom that is vital to the preservation of democracy.”
Engagement Resources
- Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism, American Association of University Professors, March 2022, https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/legislative-threats-academic-freedom
- Academic Freedom and Tenure: Muhlenberg College, American Association of University Professors, April, 2025, https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/investigation-and-inquiries/academic-freedom-and-tenure
- California Democrats Are Fighting Trump’s Battle for Him, Lily Greenberg Call, Aug. 15, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/opinion/california-democrat-jewish-trump.html
- ADC Files Federal Suit Challenging California’s AB 715 for Chilling Classroom Speech, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Nov. 3, 2025, https://adc.org/adc-files-federal-suit-challenging-californias-ab-715-for-chilling-classroom-speech/