Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Massachusetts Senate

SENATOR REBECCA L. RAUSCH SENATOR JASON M. LEWIS

Norfolk, Worcester and Middlesex District Fifth Middlesex District
_________ _________

Senate Chair Senate Chair

JOINT COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT JOINT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND NATURAL RESOURCES

April 3, 2024

VIA EMAIL ONLY

Max Page, President

Massachusetts Teachers Association
2 Heritage Drive, 8th Floor
Quincy, MA 02171

Re: Concerns about recent MTA actions

Dear Mr. Page:

We write wearing many hats. We are allies of unions and workers, parents of children currently
in or graduates of our public schools, products of public schools ourselves, Jews, people with
deep connections to Israel and her people, education policymakers, and dedicated advocates for a
more just and equitable society. In our capacities as State Senators, we are proud to have
partnered with you and your organization on several important shared issues that uplift teachers,
students, and our school communities across the Commonwealth, including efforts to advance
equity, diversity, and inclusion. We look forward to continued partnerships going forward.

We believe good partnerships inherently involve discussions about concerns and missteps. So it
is that we find ourselves writing this letter, and doing so with heavy hearts.

As you know, this is a time of immense challenge, struggle, suffering, death, fear, hatred, and
misunderstanding. It is at precisely such a time that teachers become ever so much more
important because people look to teachers to provide facts and guide compassionate and
carefully considered discourse. Teachers should foster safe spaces to have those conversations,
and teachers should be supported by their own organization both in advancing those goals and in
general, with inclusivity and respect. Unfortunately, recent actions taken directly and supported
by the MTA are antithetical to those goals. We can no longer remain silent about these actions.

Specifically, on December 9, 2023, the MTA Executive Board, acting independent of the more
than 100,000 teachers and staff union members, adopted a factually inaccurate and inflammatory
action that, more than two months after the atrocities of October 7, failed to even mention the
horrors of that day perpetrated by Hamas, which has been designated by the United States
government as a terrorist organization since 1997, let alone condemn those heinous and barbaric
acts or call for the safe return of the hostages. The action smacked of antisemitism and lacked
compassion and empathy for Jewish and Israeli people in our communities, including many
among the ranks of the MTA’s membership. Indeed, the action was so biased and harmful that
the MTA’s own chapters and members immediately sought to denounce and dissociate from it,
and you issued a subsequent statement in response to the swift and appropriately harsh backlash.

More recently, on March 21, 2024, the MTA’s Anti-Racism Task Force hosted a webinar that
purported, by its title, to offer support to teachers in addressing anti-Palestinian racism. By all
accounts we have received, the webinar did nothing of the sort and instead spent the better part
of two hours proffering anti-Israel and antisemitic political propaganda. Indeed, while the
webinar commenced at 6:00 p.m., at 7:50 p.m., with only 10 minutes remaining in the allotted
time slot, an attendee asked:

“When are we going to learn about anti-Palestinian racism[?] We were hoping to

learn about that and how to identify and address it when it arises in an education
setting. I am disappoint[ed] that instead we are just hearing about how horrible
Israel is…. We were hoping for tools for the classroom related to combatting anti-
Palestinian racism rather than being exposed to political pole[m]ic.”

The response was dismissive, accusing the attendee of failing to “hear and learn” rather than
answering the question.

Along these lines, the presentation contained a slide identifying Jewish organizations that
purportedly should be condemned as part of the Zionist “machine” and included a photograph of
President Biden, directly invoking age-old and false antisemitic tropes of power, influence, and
control and harkening back to the antisemitic “Mapping Project” published in 2022. Notably,
several of the organizations listed are longtime educational and social justice partners of the
MTA, including Hillel and the Jewish Community Relations Council. Presenters also falsely
accused the Anti-Defamation League of inflating recorded numbers of antisemitic incidents and
wrongly applied and misused terms such as settler colonialism and genocide in strikingly
antisemitic ways. Even in its advertised description, the webinar promoted antisemitic content.

Other teacher and attendee responses to the webinar included the following:
• “The entire presentation was steeped in antisemitic tropes - gaslit Jews to say that we
(a) can’t define [Z]ionism, (b) can’t define antisemitism, (c) are using antisemitism as
a tactic to silence Palestinian voices, and (d) are inflating numbers about
antisemitism.”
• “There were parts that were straight blood libel.”
• “The entire presentation was horrific, but the slide about ‘who says this? The Jews.’
did me in.”
• “I feel I have nowhere to go as a Jewish public school educator.”

We note that all evidence of this webinar has since been removed from the MTA’s website.
We hope you will agree that, at minimum, differing viewpoints exist about the substance of the
webinar and the Executive Board’s December action, and that alienating Jewish educators,
students, and parents does not align with the MTA’s goals or values.

We share concerns for the plight of Palestinian people. We agree that legitimate critiques of
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing government and policies are not antisemitic. But neither
of these should be coupled with racism or antisemitism. When such bigoted coupling occurs, so
too does dehumanization, and any space for meaningful discourse dissipates. There must be
compassion enough to go around.

In his concurrence in Whitney v. California, Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously stated, “[i]f
there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the
processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” 274 U.S.
357, 377 (1927). We ask that you take Justice Brandeis’s advice to heart and host one or more
webinars, panel discussions, or other events that provide your membership with viewpoints on
antisemitism, Israel, Zionism, October 7, and related topics that to date have been silenced within
the statewide MTA. We are fortunate to live in an area with no shortage of experts on these
matters, including professors at Brandeis University and leaders within or affiliated with the
Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Boston and ADL New England.

Particularly given the stark rise of antisemitism in our communities, it is incumbent upon us as
lawmakers to speak up against anti-Jewish bias and hatred, just as we believe it is incumbent
upon you to provide your members with balanced, nuanced, and accurate resources, as well as
safe spaces to discuss divisive matters and participate in your organization. We are disappointed
and concerned that MTA leadership has not demonstrated a commitment to this responsibility.

The MTA’s actions described above have been neither anti-racist nor supportive of productive
dialogue or meaningful strides toward peace. Teachers, students, and parents share our worry
that our Commonwealth’s largest teachers union appears to be promoting a one-sided ideological
view that, if perpetuated, would further isolate and potentially endanger Jewish and Israeli
people in our schools and communities. Please take this opportunity to remedy past
counterproductive actions with new efforts to repair rifts, combat hatred and bigotry, and strive
for better inclusion and safety. We offer our partnership to you in such efforts.

Yours in service,

Senator Rebecca L. Rausch Senator Jason M. Lewis