A federal complaint filed Monday accuses the National Education Association of discriminating against Jewish educators, citing the union’s racial preferences and its failure to address “unchecked harassment” at the latest annual conference.
In its filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Brandeis Center accuses the nation’s largest teachers’ union of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by perpetuating a hostile environment for Jewish members.
“The NEA has engaged in a sustained pattern and practice of discrimination and harassment against Jewish members, including the use of unlawful racial and ethnic classifications, the toleration and amplification of anti-Semitic hostility, and the failure to take prompt or effective remedial action despite repeated notice,” according to the complaint submitted on behalf of the center and four Jewish teachers.
The center asked the EEOC to order the union to “cease and desist from classifying NEA members based on race and ethnicity for purposes of leadership and representation opportunities,” arguing that the racial quotas discriminate against Jews and others listed as “White.”
Kenneth Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, called the NEA’s conduct “both completely illegal and morally unjustifiable.”
“All educators, regardless of their ethnicity, deserve a safe workplace and support from the people whose job it is to protect them,” said Mr. Marcus, who served as assistant education secretary from 2018 to 2020. “In this case, the hostile, anti-Semitic environment propagated by the NEA is not confined to the union; it touches every school and every classroom in which an NEA member works.”
Much of the complaint centered on the union’s 2025 Representative Assembly in Portland, Oregon, the four-day meeting in July marked by open animosity toward Jewish members.
One of the four Jewish educators on the complaint, identified as a social studies teacher from California, sent an email to the NEA after the assembly titled, “What I Witnessed at the NEA Representative Assembly Shook Me to My Core.”
“I watched as delegates, lined up wearing keffiyehs, donned in Palestinian flags, and sporting shirts accusing Jews of genocide — ready, coordinated, and rehearsed to speak against anything remotely Jewish,” the July 12 email said. “These were not spontaneous remarks. They were strategic efforts to erase and vilify. It was a preplanned coordinated attack to demonize, vilify and make Jews feel unsafe.”
During debate on a proposal to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish delegates faced “targeted hostility and physical intimidation” from pro-Palestinian delegates when they sought to speak.
“Delegates aligned with anti-Israel advocacy physically positioned themselves near Jewish Affairs Caucus members, shouted down Jewish participants, and created an atmosphere in which Jewish delegates reasonably feared retaliation and physical harm for participating in governance,” the complaint said.
In some cases, anti-Israel delegates stood so close to Jewish delegates that they could not clap — which was required to vote — without physical contact, compelling them to relocate to different sections of the hall.
At another point, a Jewish delegate who brought up the deadly June 1 firebombing attack on a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, was met with “laughter and clapping by anti-Semitic participants in the assembly,” the complaint said.
“This was beyond political; it was inhuman and repulsive,” the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus said in a July 15 letter to the union leadership, as referenced in the complaint.
The Representative Assembly recognized other minority affinity groups for speeches, but refused to recognize the Jewish Affairs Caucus for a commemoration of its 50th anniversary “due to physical intimidation and disruption by organized groups of member-delegates,” the complaint said.
Members of anti-Israel groups would surround Jewish speakers on the floor. The “coordinated and physically intimidating” behavior eventually prompted security to intervene and stand between the Jewish members and anti-Israel members.
In addition, a proposal to recognize Jewish ethnicity as a minority classification was advanced but later rejected by the union’s leadership.
Even so, the complaint said the NEA leadership failed to address the intimidating behavior, sending an “unmistakable message to the state and local affiliate unions that anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination of Jewish members are acceptable and compatible with NEA standards.”
Other examples include language in the NEA’s 2025 Handbook describing those killed in the Holocaust as “12 million victims of different faiths,” with no reference to Jews, and the dissemination of a map that labels Israel as “Palestine.” The union backtracked on both those materials after a public backlash.
NEA President Becky Pringle has repeatedly denied allegations of antisemitism, saying in July that the union is “deeply committed to ensuring the safety and inclusion of Jewish educators and students.”
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, have also opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at the NEA.
