Jun 7, 2026 Educators for Palestine, Vetoed: The cases of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Historical Association (AHA) A joint panel by Educators for Palestine-NEA (E4P-NEA) and Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD). Endorsed by: Labor for Palestine National Network and Drop the ADL. June 6, 11 am PST/12 pm mountain/1 pm central/2 pm EST In January 2025 and 2026, while Israel committed genocide against Palestinians, the American Historical Association voted overwhelmingly to pass the Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza. However, the AHA Council vetoed the resolution and overturned the decision of the membership. In July 2025, the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union, passed a resolution that “NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).” However, the NEA’s Board of Directors voted not to implement this proposal. This panel will address the following: •What responsibility do academic workers have in regards to the ongoing genocide in Palestine and other concurrent or future wars? •What material and ideological support can we give to peoples’ movements resisting genocide and war? •What happens when our ostensibly democratic organizations overturn our democratic decisions? •What are the next steps for educators organizing for Palestine solidarity? Guest Speakers Margaret Power is a professor of History emerita from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is the author or co-author of seven books including Right-Wing Women in Chile: Feminine Power and the Struggle Against Allende and Solidarity Across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Anti-imperialism. She is co-chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy and on the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago. Judy Greenspan is a Jewish teacher from Oakland, California, a member of the Oakland Education Association and Bay Area Labor for Palestine. Judy, uses they/them pronouns, and has spent decades supporting the fight for a free Palestine, opposing all US wars and militarism abroad and fighting for the human rights of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities at home. Samantha Payne is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She teaches courses on slavery and emancipation in the nineteenth-century United States and the Atlantic World. She is a member of the Steering Committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy and has been involved in a number of direct actions organized by Jewish Voice for Peace. She is currently working on her first book, Atlantic Reconstruction (under contract with University of North Carolina Press). Merrie Najimy is a veteran public-school educator of 36 years whose pedagogy and practice is grounded in anti-racism. She served as the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association from 2018-2022, where she led a social justice, anti-racist agenda. She is a co-founder of both NEA Educators for Palestine and MTA Rank & File for Palestine. @educatorsforpalestine_nea @histpeace @laborforpalestine @droptheadlfromschools
