Influential senator accuses nation’s largest teachers’ union of ‘deeply troubling’ rise in antisemitism

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, accused the nation’s largest teachers’ union of encouraging antisemitism, saying it had abandoned its original purpose to focus on politics.

Cassidy, chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sent a letter Thursday to Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, criticizing the union’s antisemitic and anti-Israel stands.

“The Jewish people have suffered assaults on their identity, religion, culture, and lives for millennia. Disturbingly, we are witnessing a rise in antisemitic sentiment across the Western world, including in the United States,” he wrote. “Let me put it plainly: antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent and has no place within our society, especially at our K-12 schools, higher institutions of learning, workplaces, and within unions.” 

Cassidy, who joined the Senate in 2015, went on to describe various incidents, including a map that was sent to the NEA’s nearly 3 million members the day after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. The map celebrated “indigenous lands” and shared “resources to teach students about the ‘land we occupy.’” 

The resource, from Native Land Digital, represented the modern state of Israel’s boundaries as only “Palestine,” and “recommended resources linked to terror-supporting organizations, who have expressed support” for the Hamas attack. 

Following backlash, “the NEA scrubbed the resource and issued a statement that the ‘external resource . . . does not meet [its] standards.’ However, the NEA issued no apology to its Jewish members for this inexcusable, glaring error, nor did it advise its members to stop using the resources.” Cassidy’s letter notes that the map “still has not been corrected to reflect a more accurate history of the area.” 

Harassment of Jewish members 

Cassidy also pointed out alleged harassment of Jewish delegates to the union’s Representative Assembly meeting in July, where they were “vocally mocked, harassed, shunned, and threatened.” 

“Some delegates laughed and clapped when a Jewish delegate referenced the death of 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, Karen Diamond, who was burned alive by a Molotov cocktail at a peaceful protest in Colorado in June of 2025,” Cassidy wrote. “The reports of such behavior anywhere, let alone by our children’s educators at a gathering of the nation’s largest union, are shocking.” 

Other items include Pringle’s public statements criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, which fights antisemitism, an approved definition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day “which promoted a version of the Holocaust that significantly glossed over and failed to mention the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people under the Nazi regime,” and a noted pattern of hostility toward Jewish NEA members, including resisting their attempts to leave the union. 

“As a result of the NEA’s seeming indifference to the sentiments of Jewish NEA members and the organization’s tepid response to growing antisemitism, Jewish NEA members have informed the Committee that they are feeling increasingly threatened and ostracized,” Cassidy wrote. “For example, after the NEA endorsed resources that erased Israel off the map, some Jewish NEA members tried to leave the NEA only to be told that their decision to leave was ‘short-sighted’ and that they must continue to pay approximately $1,000 in annual NEA dues because of internal application deadlines. 

“Additionally, others who have tried to leave the NEA but remain in their state and local unions have been told they cannot do so, despite approximately 80 percent of annual union dues going to state and local union membership.” 

Questions about its charter 

Cassidy cites the union’s 1906 congressional charter to elevate “the profession of teaching and to promote the cause of education in the United States,” but says after more than 100 years, “the NEA has lost sight of its original purpose, becoming entrenched in political and activist causes far outside its area of expertise and failing to advance our children’s learning.” 

National math and reading scores are at historic lows, leading Cassidy to conclude that the union’s “misplaced priorities – focused on political activism, foreign policy, and environmental and social justice causes – are harming, not helping, our children.” 

He asked the union to “cooperate with the committee’s investigation” by responding to a series of questions about the various incidents by Jan. 15. 

The NEA did not immediately respond to a request from The Lion for comment Monday. 

Cassidy isn’t the first member of Congress to criticize the organization’s political bent. 

This summer, congressional Republicans introduced a bill to strip the union – which is active in all 50 states – of its charter. 

“From branding President Trump a fascist to embracing divisive gender ideology and walking away from efforts to fight antisemitism, the NEA has become nothing more than a partisan advocacy group,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Harris, R-North Carolina, who co-sponsored the legislation with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee. “Since the NEA is clearly not prioritizing students, parents or even teachers, it’s time to remove Congress’ seal of approval from this rogue organization.” 

In an unrelated matter, the Senate confirmed Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun of Florida Thursday as the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Jewish Insider reported, including a special focus on social media and digital content. The party-line vote included “nearly 100 nominees for various federal posts,” the publication said.