Mass. State Rep, President of Mass Teachers Association, President of American Federation of Teachers-Mass. and Representative from National Education Association to speak at Mass Peace Action Event
teachers unions and state representative for Massachusetts sponsor, organize an event with extreme anti-Israel Massachusetts Peace Action
On October 26th, The Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund is hosting an all-day seminar “Books Not Bombs 2024: Increasing Federal Investment in Public Education.”
The event is co-sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Cambridge Retired Educators United, Citizens for Public Schools, Massachusetts Peace Action and Our Revolution (the progressive grassroots movement formed to support Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign).
Speakers at this event include Max Page, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. He’ll be speaking on the first panel of the day on Public Education Funding Needs alongside the President of the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts Jessica Tang. Tang is described as a “teacher-activist” on the AFT website.
The next panel is moderated by Massachusetts State Representative Carol Doherty (Doherty also served on the program committee). Bianca Singh of the National Education Association is appearing on that panel alongside activists from Chicago Area Peace Action, Coalition of Human Needs, and Merrie Najimy, former President of the MTA and activist.
Najimy took part in the controversial MTA webinar on “anti-Palestinian racism” and is now a member of the Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian racism.
Ricardo Rosa of the MTA will be on the third panel of the day on “getting out the Public Education vote in November.” Rosa and the MTA have come under fire for Rosa’s role in developing learning materials on Gaza. Rosa had previously made statements referring to America and Israel as settler colonies, praising terrorist Leila Khaled, declaring “western humanity is a lie” and posting “Free Palestine” on October 9th, 2024.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Najimy or Rosa would be willing to appear at a Massachusetts Peace Action event. The question is why the National Education Association, the MTA and the AFT-Mass, not to mention a State Representative would wish to give such an extremist group legitimacy.
The MTA Rank and File for Palestine advertised the event on their Instagram page.
They’ve also posted this:
Of course, this doesn’t seem far from MAPA’s own position.
Why are the representatives of our teachers unions and state representatives prepared to sponsor and organize an event with this extremist organization?