Anti-Semitic California Union Prohibits Jewish Teacher Exodus

Anti-Semitism doesn’t belong in the workplace.

But in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), a group of Jewish teachers are forced to fund the anti-Semitic habits of their workplace representative, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA).

Beginning in 2020, UTLA’s support for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments in and outside of the classroom raised red flags among Jewish educators.

During “Teach Palestine” gatherings, for example, the union offered members curriculum to help “educators bring Palestine into their classrooms.” A project of the Middle East Children’s Alliance, similar union-sponsored strategizing sessions across the state of California represent “a coordinated effort to brainwash children.”

One union official made use of this curriculum in the classroom, likening life in Gaza to imprisonment in Holocaust concentration camps.

Outside of the classroom, anti-Semitism began to permeate union ideology. During a 2021 UTLA meeting regarding ethnic studies, union President Cecily Myart-Cruz dubbed the Museum of Tolerance, a Holocaust museum, the “enemy,” while another speaker’s profanity-riddled remarks attacked Israel directly.

And, despite its name, UTLA’s standing “Human Rights Committee” continues to spew similar anti-Jewish rhetoric to this effect.

UTLA’s flirtation with anti-Semitism quickly devolved into outright discrimination against Jewish teachers.

As members challenged UTLA’s ideology, union officers began to forcibly remove teachers questioning the anti-Semitic status-quo from Facebook forums and in-person meetings.

During Zoom meetings, teachers were booted for displaying backgrounds with nonpolitical Jewish imagery, while other members and guests were encouraged to display politically charged backdrops, so long as they were the right kind of politics.

The last straw for many Jewish teachers represented by UTLA, however, followed the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Instead of issuing a statement of solidarity following the massacres, UTLA remained silent, speaking up only to label Israel an “apartheid state” and “occupier.”

Further, UTLA’s Executive Board permitted multiple re-introductions of a motion criticizing Israel while advocating for protection of the Hamas attackers without concern for the victims and hostages lost on October 7th.

Doubling down again on its anti-Semitic tendencies, UTLA endorsed Kahllid Al-Alim for election to the LAUSD school board. Al-Alim’s social media accounts, fraught with vulgar anti-Semitic rhetoric, featured blood-libel and conspiracy theories, including blanket accusations against the Jewish people for “collaborating with and even financing such racial terrorists as the Ku Klux Klan.”

After intense backlash, UTLA pulled support for Al-Alim after contributing more than $700,000 worth of membership dues towards his campaign.

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Per the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME (2018), public employees cannot be forced to pay union dues, especially those that support a hateful political ideology like UTLA’s.

Regardless, the requests of eight Jewish teachers to cancel UTLA membership and fees were ignored.

Left with no option to defend themselves from a union hostile to their identity and value system, several Jewish members reached out to the Freedom Foundation, a government union watchdog that provides pro-bono legal assistance to those held hostage within dues-paying membership.

“The Employees no longer wish to support UTLA as members, or financially through deductions from their lawfully earned wages,” our demand letter read. “Hence, they are withdrawing affirmative consent to affiliation with UTLA and demand that UTLA immediately release them from membership and further dues deductions.”

Despite its promise to “uphold educators’ rights,” UTLA disregarded its members’ demands, ignored the letter, and sent a lawyer to inform teachers of their inability to cancel dues payments.

The Freedom Foundation’s effort to liberate LAUSD’s marginalized Jewish teachers doesn’t end here. The union’s resounding commitment to anti-Semitism at the expense of its members begs the question of whether UTLA is capable of responsibly representing educators at all.

Until UTLA releases those Jewish teachers desperate to cease involuntary support for a union that hates them, the answer will remain “no.”

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Shella Alcabes is litigation counsel for the Freedom Foundation.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.