Massachusetts Teachers Association Fails to Follow Through on Promise to Remove Anti-Semitic Materials from Website

Over 95% of controversial materials remain

After being called out in an embarrassing public Massachusetts State House hearing in front of the Special Commission on Combatting anti-Semitism, the Massachusetts Teachers Association vowed to remove blatantly hateful material from their website. Well, they removed SOME of it. According to Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism, 95% of the material remains. The ADL suggests that number is even higher.

As a quick refresher on what these materials were, they included this extremely unsubtle poster:

This one encouraging violence against Israel:

And this gem calling Biden a serial killer for supporting Israel:

These “resources” appeared despite Massachusetts Teachers Association leader Max Page releasing a statement after the hearing asserting that, “We recognize our responsibility to provide our members with materials that are accurate, diverse and balanced.”

In the same statement, Mr. Page also complains that, “While we make this necessary correction, our union remains deeply disappointed that in conversations with the House co-chair, prior to the Feb. 10 hearing, we had been led to believe that the commission hearing would provide the opportunity for a thoughtful discussion about how to teach this very difficult conflict with our students. Instead, the co-chair used this hearing as an opportunity to engage in political grandstanding that was disturbing to many.”

According to Massachusetts State Rep. Simon Cataldo, one of the co-chairs on the Commission, “The responsible move would have been to take the entire list down and engage in a good faith effort to fix it, however, I think it was conclusively established during our February 10th meeting that the MTA’s leadership is not a responsible arbiter of how the subject matter should be taught, so I am unsurprised that the resources remain deeply flawed from an educational perspective.”

A group of teachers fighting back against anti-Zionism in the MTA, Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism, said they were “outraged”: “We had hoped that the MTA’s decision to address some of the troubling resources would lead them to reflect on whether the intention behind these curriculum resources was truly in the best interest of its members and the students it serves. Clearly this did not happen.”

They went on to say, “We can’t let the MTA claim they’ve made real changes. They’ve removed just two links, while 95% of their resources remain online — many of which are one-sided, biased, and delegitimize Israel.”

Even the Anti-Defamation League took notice of the MTA’s failure to follow through on their promises. ADL New England’s Sarah Colb posted the following on X:

After the hearing, the MTA released the following statement, “As trusted educators, MTA members would never want to have antisemitic materials on the MTA website, and the MTA does not promote materials that direct hate at any group. We will remove any materials that do not further the cause of promoting understanding.” Instead of following through on this promise, the MTA acted disingenuously by removing only a tiny fraction of the problematic material. It remains to be seen whether Max Page and his cohort will do what they actually promised, but regardless of future action, they continue to make it abundantly clear where they stand.