By Aaron Gifford

A Washington-based human rights organization today filed a federal complaint against the National Education Association (NEA), alleging the teachers’ union discriminated against its Jewish members and promoted a hostile environment throughout K–12 public schools.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism filed the charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It cites several anti-Semitic incidents that took place during the NEA’s annual meeting last year, in addition to a pattern of discrimination where the union, with more than 3 million members, denied Jewish members opportunities for leadership, mentorship, grievance, and training.

During the July 2025 NEA Representative Assembly event in Portland, Oregon, anti-Israel delegates disrupted and intimidated a speaker who tried to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the union’s Jewish Affairs Caucus, according to the coalition. They also surrounded and shouted at Jewish delegates and applauded and laughed at remarks about a former member, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, who was murdered in an anti-Semitic attack in Colorado, the complaint alleged.

The NEA unlawfully used ethnic and racial classifications, and in doing so, categorized Jews as white and set aside certain governance positions and other benefits for non-white members, according to the coalition, which also alleged that references to Jews as the primary victims of the Holocaust were removed from the NEA’s updated handbook. The union also distributed to its membership a map that didn’t recognize Israel and labeled all of that nation’s territory as Palestine, according to the complaint.

The Brandeis Center called for corrective action to ensure equal treatment and a nondiscriminatory environment for all NEA members.

“The NEA’s conduct is 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,” Kenneth Marcus, Brandeis Center CEO and a former chief of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a May 4 statement

“This is exactly the type of discrimination against which Title VII was designed to protect. And by fighting to protect our NEA members from bigotry, we’re also fighting to protect our children from an environment that allows discrimination and anti-Semitic tropes. Unions are supposed to protect their members’ rights. The NEA is actually violating them.”

The Brandeis Center previously helped Jews change discriminatory practices at Microsoft and the New York Legal Aid Group union. It also sued and reached settlements with Harvard University, which led to the Ivy League institution establishing a “working definition” of anti-Semitism and recognizing the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity, according to the statement.

The Epoch Times reached out to the NEA but did not hear back by the time of publication.

On July 24, 2025, which was two weeks after its annual meeting, the NEA updated its handbook to acknowledge and promote International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The National Education Association has opposed anti-Semitism throughout its history and is deeply committed to ensuring the safety and inclusion of Jewish educators and students,” Becky Pringle, NEA president, said in a July 24 statement.