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anti-defamation league
Priest Defrocked Over Tribute to Musk Nazi Salute—But Billionaire Still Running DOGE
One insider opined that "Trump isn't about to turn his back on someone who wields immense influence and has written checks for hundreds of millions of dollars to his campaign."
Jan 30, 2025
The Anglican Catholic Church has removed a Michigan priest who made a gesture widely interpreted as a Nazi salute in solidarity with Elon Musk during an anti-abortion conference last week—but critics noted that the multibillionaire businessman is still employed as the head of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.
Calvin Robinson, the former priest-in-charge at St. Paul's Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) in Grand Rapids, was defrocked on Wednesday, the church—which is not affiliated with Roman Catholicism—said in a statement published on its website.
"While we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson's heart when he did this, his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition," the church said. "Mr. Robinson had been warned that online trolling and other such actions (whether in service of the left or right) are incompatible with a priestly vocation and was told to desist. Clearly, he has not, and as such, his license in this church has been revoked. He is no longer serving as a priest in the ACC."
"We believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and diminish the sacrifice of those who fought against its perpetrators," ACC said. "Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity."
Musk—who is the world's richest person—made what has been broadly viewed as the Nazi "Sieg Heil" salute twice during a Washington, D.C. celebration following Trump's January 20 inauguration. Musk, who denied the gesture had anything to do with Nazism, responded to the firestorm of controversy his motion ignited by saying, "The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."
Robinson
mimicked Musk's gesture during supportive comments at the National Pro-Life Summit on January 25.
My heart goes out to you.
Make America Pro-Life Again. 🇺🇸🫡 pic.twitter.com/5bG8Gyy5fH
— Calvin Robinson (@calvinrobinson) January 29, 2025
"For the record, in case it needs saying: I am not a Nazi," Robinson wrote on Facebook Wednesday in defense of his action, which he called "a joke" meant to make a "mockery of the hysterical 'liberals' who called Elon Musk a Nazi for quite clearly showing the audience his heart was with them."
"Context is key, but sometimes people ignore context to confirm their own prejudices," he added. "People see what they want to see."
ACC's decisive action stands in stark contrast with the response of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which bills itself as the world's "leading anti-hate organization," but dismissed Musk's motion as an "awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm."
Investors in Tesla—the electric carmaker Musk leads along with the social media platform X and SpaceX—are pressing the far-right businessman, who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump's campaign, for answers.
"How much time does Elon Musk devote to growing Tesla, solving product issues, and driving shareholder value vs. his public engagements with Trump, DOGE, and political activities?" one retail investor asked. "Do you believe he's providing Tesla the focus it needs?"
Last week, Musk made a surprise appearance at a rally for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), during which he urged supporters to "move beyond" the collective guilt felt by many Germans for starting World War II and perpetrating the Holocaust.
"It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything," Musk said.
Some observers questioned why Musk is still in charge of DOGE—and predicted his honeymoon with Trump will not last.
"Musk at some point is going to lose his luster," a source close to the Trump team toldThe Hill Thursday. "Because he's a little bit goofy; too many unforced errors."
However, Jordan Wood, a former Trump administration communications aide, told the outlet that "Trump isn't about to turn his back on someone who wields immense influence and has written checks for hundreds of millions of dollars to his campaign."
"Elon is firmly in the inner circle; he seems to be generally liked among the staff," Wood noted, adding that those inside the Trump administration opposed to Musk "are going to have a tough time dealing with that."
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Why Won’t the US Corporate Media Call a Nazi Salute a Nazi Salute?
The mainstream press failed to accurately describe the hand gesture that Elon Musk made twice at Trump’s Inauguration Day rally, setting a troubling precedent for the second Trump era.
Jan 24, 2025
There’s something about the start of a Trump presidency that makes grown men do strange things, like heiling Hitler.
Eight years ago, after President Donald Trump’s first election, white nationalist Richard Spencer couldn’t resist flashing a Nazi salute as he addressed a rally just blocks from the White House (PBS, 11/22/16).
My only comfort was knowing that Musk would be excoriated in the coming news cycle. But when I searched our hometown newspaper, The Washington Post, all I saw was a headline that read, “Elon Musk Gives Exuberant Speech at Inauguration.”
This time around, a more prominent Trump supporter gave a Nazi salute in a bigger forum. “I never imagined we would see the day when what appears to be a Heil Hitler salute would be made behind the presidential seal,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter/X (1/20/25).
Nadler was referring to Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s major patron. Having spent over $275 million backing Trump, Musk secured a speaking slot at Trump’s Inauguration Day rally at Capital One Arena.
Addressing the crowd from the same podium Trump would soon speak from, Musk gave a passionate Nazi salute. Then he did it again.
‘A Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute’
The New York Times (1/20/25) described the moment:
[Musk] grunted and placed his hand to his heart before extending his arm out above his head with his palm facing down. After he turned around, he repeated the motion to those behind him.
“My heart goes out to you,” Musk then said. “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”
The Times story was headlined, “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture.”
But speculation wasn’t needed. “Whoever on a political stage, making a political speech in front of a partly far-right audience, elongates his arm diagonally in the air both forcefully and repeatedly, is making a Hitler salute,” wrote journalist Lenz Jacobsen. His story for the German newspaper Die Zeit (1/21/25) is headlined “A Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute.”
NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat was no less certain. “That was a Nazi salute—and a very belligerent one too,” she wrote on X (1/20/25).
Ben-Ghiat was commenting on a widely shared video posted by PBS’s “NewsHour,” which reported that “Musk gave what appeared to be a fascist salute.”
In a sign of the dangers that lie ahead for media, particularly public media, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) gave Musk a pass for his racist salute, and instead took aim at PBS for posting video of it. Greene wrote on X (1/20/25):
I look forward to PBS “NewsHour” coming before my committee and explaining why lying and spreading propaganda to serve the Democrat Party and attack Republicans is a good use of taxpayer funds.
We will be in touch soon.
Meanwhile, the axe has already fallen on a Milwaukee meteorologist. CBS 58—whose call letters, coincidentally, are WDJT—dropped Sam Kuffel the day after she posted about Musk’s salute on her personal Instagram account (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1/22/25). Over a picture of Musk, Kuffel’s post read: “Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration.”
‘The Actual Truth’
Reared in apartheid South Africa, Musk is no stranger to extremism. Like many on the far-right, a favorite target of Musk’s is George Soros, the Jewish billionaire who funds lefty candidates and causes.
As Israeli newspaper Haaretz (1/20/25) reported:
Much of Musk’s criticism centers around Soros’ supposed role in the racist “great replacement theory,” whose proponents allege that Soros is funding waves of immigration that are meant to deliberately dilute the white population in order to reshape society and its politics. This conspiracy has been cited by white nationalists who have perpetrated deadly attacks in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo.
Soros is bent on “destroying Western civilization,” says Musk, who after making his Nazi salute thanked Trump’s supporters for assuring “the future of civilization.”
Musk has endorsed explicitly antisemitic conspiracy theories. He responded, “You have said the actual truth” (X, 11/15/23) to a user who posted:
Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about Western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that [they] support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.
Trump, of course, is also fluent in far-right ideology. His first wife, Ivana, said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches near his bed (ABC, 12/20/23). As president, after white nationalists romped through Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us” in 2017, Trump famously said that some of them were “very fine people.”
And Musk isn’t just backing Trump; he’s also voiced support for far-right candidates in Europe. “He has made recent statements in support of Germany’s far-right AfD party and British anti-immigration party Reform UK,” reported the BBC (1/21/25), which noted Musk’s “politics have increasingly shifted to the right.”
‘Musk Stirs Controversy’
The only word my wife could utter as she handed me her phone Monday night was “watch.” And we did. Again and again, with our stomachs in knots.
My only comfort was knowing that Musk would be excoriated in the coming news cycle. But when I searched our hometown newspaper, The Washington Post, all I saw was a headline that read, “Elon Musk Gives Exuberant Speech at Inauguration.”
The post consisted of a one-minute video of Musk’s “high-energy speech,” and left out the jaw-dropping part: Musk, head on, eagerly giving a Nazi salute for all the world to see. The Post video only showed Musk’s second, comparatively lackluster salute, with his back to the cameras.
By late Tuesday morning, the Post had uploaded a new video that included a straight-on shot of Musk’s first salute, but under the anodyne headline: “Elon Musk Stirs Controversy Over Hand Gesture at Trump Rally.”
By Tuesday night, the Post had finally published its own story, as well as republished an Associated Press story. The latter began:
Right-wing extremists are celebrating Elon Musk’s straight-arm gesture during a speech Monday, although his intention wasn’t totally clear.
Meanwhile, Post columnist Megan McArdle claimed Musk’s salute may have been nothing more than “an awkward attempt to embody what he said next: ‘My heart goes out to you.’” In her column—headlined “The Missing Context From the Elon Musk Salute” (1/21/25)—McArdle wrote that Musk “made other awkward gestures” in his speech:
That may just be how he moves when he’s excited. Musk has said he is mildly autistic, and even high-functioning autistic people struggle with reading, and sending, accurate social cues.
A Mogul With Prime Seating
For the Post, its weak coverage of Musk’s salute comes at a time when the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has been busy supplicating himself before Trump (FAIR.org, 1/22/25).
Just ahead of the election, Bezos personally killed the Post’s endorsement of Trump’s opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris (FAIR.org, 10/30/24). Since Trump’s win, Bezos and the company he founded, Amazon, have lavished Trump and his family with millions of dollars. And the Post recently spiked a drawing by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes, which depicted Bezos and other tech billionaires groveling before Trump (FAIR.org, 1/7/25).
That groveling is what enabled Bezos to view Trump’s inauguration up close. “Donald Trump did everything but invite the tech moguls to join him in taking the oath,” wrote the Post’s Ruth Marcus (1/20/25):
The scene—moguls with prime dais seating inside the cozy Rotunda, while lawmakers and governors and other luminaries were relegated to watching on screens—could not have been more revealing.
Amid Bezos’s politicking, the Post is in freefall, hemorrhaging talent and readers—yet another gift to Trump.
‘Pure Propaganda’
Musk, notably, hasn’t denied that he made a Nazi salute. Instead, he’s lashed out on X(1/21/25, 1/22/25), the platform he owns, blaming the “pure propaganda” media and “radical leftists” for stirring up controversy. Musk also wrote on X (1/20/25) that “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
But as Vanity Fair’s Kase Wickman (1/21/25) noted, “people weren’t calling him Hitler”:
They were saying that he made a gesture that people who really dig Hitler typically make. It would be very easy to just plainly say that that wasn’t the intention, but Musk just let that pass.
Still, Musk has defenders, most notably Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (X, 1/23/25) and the Anti-Defamation League. The latter claimed Musk “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.” Let’s all “take a breath,” the ADL posted on X (1/20/25).
Despite billing itself as a defender of civil rights and the final arbiter on antisemitism, the ADL has long prioritized its right-wing agenda above all (In These Times, 7/21/20).
With its defense of Musk, “ADL opted to gaslight,” Haaretz’s Ben Samuels wrote on X (1/21/25). Samuels’ recent story (1/21/25) is headlined “Musk’s ‘Fascist Salute’: U.S. Jewish Establishment Failed Its First Test With Trump 2.0.”
Much of U.S. corporate media also failed that first test.
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Schools Are No Place for the ADL
Educators must consider the actual cost of a free program like “No Place for Hate,” whose sponsor conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism, files civil rights complaints against schools, and promotes Israel propaganda in the classroom.
Jan 02, 2025
Launched in 1913 to counter antisemitism and discrimination, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, now resembles a mythological shapeshifter that presents alternately as a civil rights organization and a pro-Israel propagandist.
In its “No Place for Hate” program that caters to both elementary and secondary schools, the ADL’s stated mission is to empower students, teachers, and parents to “stand against bias and bullying... ” with school-wide pledges, projects, and games aimed at celebrating diversity and stamping out hate in the halls, in the cafeteria, in the reading circle, anywhere that hate may manifest.
In Norse mythology, the jealous god Loki is a shapeshifter who appears alternately as a salmon or an old woman. Disguised as the old woman, Loki—the god of darkness—carves an arrow out of mistletoe to trick the blind god Hodr into hurling an arrow at his exalted twin brother, Baldr—the god of light.
The ADL is not a salmon or a singular old woman, but a cunning policy advocate that despite allegations of spying on social justice movements and targeting Arab-led organizations has popularized its “No Place for Hate” lessons in 2,000 schools, reaching 190,000 educators and 1.8 million students—according to the ADL website.
Sure, the program offers banners draped across hallways, pledges and to-do lists, even sage advice now and then, but the pretty package turns ugly once fully opened and scrutinized for its pro-Israel indoctrination.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) of over 500,000 students, No Place for Hate schools either currently or previously included Roosevelt High School, Amelia Earhart Middle School, Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, Mark Twain Elementary School, and others. The LAUSD Office of Student Civil Rights links to the ADL under “Tools for Educators,” which in turn links to an article attacking American Muslims for Palestine for “being at the core of the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement in the United States.” In 2022, LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson, now board president and often a champion of public education, authored a resolution instructing the superintendent to invite the ADL to update and revise curriculum.
While selling schools on activities to bolster respect and community, the ADL—analogous to the shapeshifter in mythology—engineers the death of debate over Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nationalist state in historic Palestine.
In a No Place for Hate lesson on scapegoating, the ADL writes, “Debates about the legitimacy of Israel’s existence or demonization of Israelis create an unsafe climate for Jewish students and interrupt opportunities for critical thinking for all students.” Notice how the ADL wrongly mixes debate over a nation state’s political ideology with demonization of individuals in that state—all in the same sentence to discourage critical analysis and evaluation.
Schools that subscribe to this sort of speech suppression, ruling out debate over an ethnostate colonizing, annihilating, and terrorizing Palestinians, are like the blind brother who hurls a lethal dart—only this time the weapon of propaganda pierces the institution of education to silence inquiring minds wrestling with the devastation live-streamed on their cell phones.
In Japanese mythology, the nine-tailed kitsune-yako fox can take human form to infiltrate high society, where the yako appears as a seductive woman to level a lethal curse—a scar, a burn—on an unsuspecting yet powerful man.
If only the man had been more observant, he might have noticed a few furry fox tails sticking out of the back of the yako’s dress. Yes, the shapeshifter can be unmasked provided those it targets are willing to look behind the facade.
The Lure of a Packaged Curriculum
The ADL lures schools with its anti-bias No Place for Hate program by claiming to help administrators, teachers, and parents build “inclusive and safe communities in which respect and equity are the goals and where all students can thrive.” It’s hard to resist such a pitch, particularly when it comes with banners, buttons, balloons, and bracelets as part of a polished package that outlines a step-by-step approach to creating community through “I Am” poems; peer-to-peer interviews; school surveys; and collages of diverse, smiling students.
The program, however, warrants deeper analysis, so best to begin with the basics.
How a School Qualifies—Registration
Schools that want to become a “No Place for Hate” school first must register with the ADL, which could be a problem for anyone concerned about allegations of ADL surveillance. The Guardianreports an internal 2020 ADL memo reveals the ADL tracked a Black Indianapolis activist who worked on the Deadly Exchange campaign to expose U.S. police training with the Israeli military.
“It scared the shit out of me,” the activist told the press, adding, “It stopped me from moving forward because I don’t want to put people in my life at risk—I work with youth, so it stopped me in my tracks.”
Decades earlier, The Washington Postreported that police in the 1990s investigated the ADL for allegedly “monitoring the activities of thousands of activists”—allegations the ADL denied. According to the newspaper, San Francisco police confiscated from ADL offices “leaked copies of confidential law enforcement reports, fingerprint cards, driver’s license photographs, and individual criminal histories drawn from police records.”
Next: Committee and Pledge
After registering with the ADL, schools then form a steering committee of faculty and students to guide the work of building community and challenging bias at every turn. No mention is made of centering students victimized by bullying and racism to spearhead the committee, which is charged with encouraging students, staff, and guardians to sign a school-wide pledge. For elementary schools, the pledge reads, “I promise my best to be kind to everyone—even if they are not like me.” For secondary, the pledge is more proactive, “I will reach out to support those who are targets of hate.”
The entire school is expected to sign the pledge which features a logo with the words, “No Place for Hate—An ADL Education Program.” While the words are innocuous enough, the platforming of the ADL raises concerns about elevating an organization with a history of surveillance, complaints against public schools, and unconditional support for Israel. This patronage continues in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s preliminary ruling (1/26/24) that South Africa’s genocide case against Israel was plausibly brought, and Amnesty International’s (12/5/24) scathing report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,
There’s another issue, too. While there’s nothing in the wording of the pledge that’s problematic, the fact that virtually everyone is expected to sign it in order for the school to participate can create a coercive environment.
Only ADL-Approved Activities
After students and staff sign the ADL pledge, they then move on to the next criteria required for ADL designation as an official “No Place for Hate” school. Each school must implement three of the ADL’s approved activities, such as discussions around identity, listening journals, and walks against hate.
For middle and high school, one of the recommended activities to lead to school-wide action involves a lesson plan entitled, “Antisemitic Incidents: Being an Ally, Advocate, and Activist,” in which students are to understand and recognize antisemitism based on a troubling definition that includes the marginalization of Jewish people based on myths about Israel.
Among the “materials needed” for the lesson is a link to the ADL’s “Audit of Antisemtic Incidents 2022,” which says, “References to Israel or Zionism were part of 19% of the 219 campus incidents.” The audit includes a section “Anti-Zionism/Israel-Related” in which the ADL smears the organizations Witness for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, charging antisemitic incidents were perpetrated by individuals associated with these groups. The ADL writes, “ Public statements of opposition to Zionism, which are often antisemitic, are included in the audit when it can be determined that they had a negative impact on one or more Jewish individuals or identifiable, localized groups of Jews.”
In No Place for Hate, students are rightfully encouraged to object to racist jokes, yet no one is encouraged to protest Israel’s killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands of Gazans, tens of thousands of whom are children
Does this mean the ADL considers antisemitic any criticism of Israel that offends a Jewish person? What about the thousands of Jews marching in cities, conducting sit-ins in the Capitol, and occupying subway stations with t-shirts that scream, “Cease-fire” or “Stop Arming Israel” or “Not in Our Name”? These Jews are more than offended by Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine; they are outraged.
Jewish Voice for Peace, a fast-growing anti-Zionist national organization, charges the ADL “is not a credible source on antisemitism and racism” because it conflates antisemitism with criticism of a state, adding, “The ADL has consistently targeted advocates for Palestinian human rights in a concerted and coordinated campaign to repress any speech that criticizes Israel’s current war on Gaza or its policy of oppression of Palestinians.”
The ADL has filed civil rights complaints with the Department of Education against Occidental and Pomona colleges, as well school districts in Philadelphia, Santa Ana, and Berkeley. In the complaint against Berkeley, the ADL objects to student protesters of U.S.-Israel genocide walking out of class to shout, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The chant does not call for the elimination of Jews from Palestine but the right of Palestinians expelled from their homeland to return.
Additionally, the ADL, which tells students to be kind and compassionate—never bullying—writes a threatening letter to nearly 200 college presidents, demanding investigations of the nonviolent Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus organization leading protests against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.
The Kicker
If a school wants to implement its own activity for challenging bias and bullying, it must first appeal to the ADL for approval. Absent ADL approval, the activity cannot count toward achieving official “No Place for Hate” status. One need not be a champion of public education to cringe at the outsourcing of anti-bias education to a private political advocacy organization, particularly one that, according to the website Open Secrets, spent over a million dollars in 2024 to lobby lawmakers to vote for a pro-Israel agenda.
The ADL is, after all, an enthusiastic proponent of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, with examples that conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism to open the door for more legal complaints against schools and colleges, even when the speech in question is constitutionally protected free political speech, not hatred of Jews.
School-to-Prison Pipeline via the ADL
The ADL’s No Place for Hate program includes a section on social justice, as opposed to simple acts of kindness, such as offering to help a teacher distribute papers or hold down a fountain faucet for another student. The ADL aptly defines a social justice action as one that involves a group of people who organize to bring about “institutional change” that might solve the problems of gun violence, homelessness, or school-to-prison pipeline.
How contradictory then that the ADL encourages students and teachers to both report incidents of bias and hate to the ADL by completing an incident report form, as well as—in cases of extreme injustice—calling the police, rather than referring those involved to a student-faculty council on restorative justice process that emphasizes making amends, performing school service, or developing empathy through role-plays. Under the subheading, “Best Practices for School Administrators—Act Quickly and Respond,”the curriculum advises principals to “clarify what the role and duties of school resource officers (SRO’s) and (whether) police should and should not be in the process. Contact law enforcement as necessary.”
Given the ADL’s close working relationship with police, it is worth considering whether involving the ADL increases the likelihood of police involvement and a punitive rather than educational approach, potentially creating something akin to the school-to-prison pipeline that the ADL critiques.
Never mind the police for a minute. Reporting incidents—some of which may relate to criticism of Israel—to the ADL could spell legal trouble down the road, should the school’s administration not follow the ADL’s prescription for addressing the situation.
Moreover, despite the No Place for Hate social justice verbiage, it’s hard to imagine the ADL ever approving a school-wide letter-writing campaign to Congress to block weapons to Israel during its genocide in Gaza or testimony before school boards to divest from companies building segregated roads in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Note, the No Place for Hate glossary defines antisemitism as “The marginalization and/or oppression of people who are Jewish, based on the belief in stereotypes and myths about Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel.”
Antisemitism is real—white supremacy at Charlottesville, murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Nazi symbols at January 6—but to redefine antisemitism to include criticism of Israel only confuses people while allowing a nation state to act with impunity.
Pyramid of Hate
The ADL’s No Place for Hate program introduces students to the Pyramid of Hate to encourage discussion and analysis of escalating acts of bias and bigotry. At the pyramid’s base is Biased Attitudes of stereotyping; one level higher is Acts of Bias, such as bullying; even higher on the pyramid is Discrimination; and at the top of the pyramid is Genocide, the act or intention to systematically annihilate a people.
Even though the curriculum has been updated since October 7, 2023 there is no mention of Israel’s bombardment and starvation of over 2 million imprisoned Gazans, nor the multitude of experts around the world who have named Israel’s actions genocide.
In No Place for Hate, students are rightfully encouraged to object to racist jokes, yet no one is encouraged to protest Israel’s killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands of Gazans, tens of thousands of whom are children. A 2024 study by the Community Training Center for Crisis Management in Gaza found “96% of children surveyed feel their death is imminent, while 49% have expressed a desire to die.”
In its open letter to educators, the Drop The ADL From Schools campaign—endorsed by 90 organization—writes the ADL “attacks schools, educators, and students with bad-faith accusations of antisemitism in order to silence and punish constitutionally protected criticism of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism.” The organization asks educators to cut ties with the ADL, including use of its No Place for Hate curriculum. Meanwhile, CODEPINK activists are testifying in front of school boards on California’s Central Coast, urging board members to expel the ADL.
Bottom Line
For all its political correctness—the curriculum’s emphasis on pronouns and respect for non-binary identities—at the end of the school day No Place for Hate personifies the mythical character of the shapeshifter as it lures school districts into checking off the anti-bias box while surrendering authority to the controversial Anti-Defamation League. Sure, the program offers banners draped across hallways, pledges and to-do lists, even sage advice now and then, but the pretty package turns ugly once fully opened and scrutinized for its pro-Israel indoctrination.
The Alternative–the Power Within
While it’s tempting for administrators to subscribe to a free, pre-packaged curriculum, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to addressing racism or bullying and bias that seeps into our schools as a result of society’s structural racism: segregation, caste, economic inequality, voter suppression. But this work must be done bottom up, by creating a school community of critical thinkers, principled actors, and life-long learners.
From the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) in Creating a School Community:
Students in schools with a strong sense of community are more likely to be academically motivated (Solomon, Battistich, Watson, Schaps, & Lewis, 2000); to act ethically and altruistically (Schaps, Battistich, & Solomon, 1997); to develop social and emotional competencies (Solomon et al., 2000); and to avoid a number of problem behaviors, including drug use and violence (Resnick et al., 1997).
Rather than ceding control to the Anti-Defamation League for a top-down prescription, schools can exercise their own agency to build community through schoolwide public service projects, murals that reflect students’ ethnic diversity, and cultural events that celebrate acts of resistance to oppression and colonization. Inside the classroom, teachers can address issues of race, bias, and bullying with books and short stories that lend themselves to rich discussion.
In the Final Analysis...
Educators must consider the actual cost of a free program like “No Place for Hate,” whose sponsor conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism, files civil rights complaints against schools, and promotes Israel propaganda in the classroom. The answer to creating a positive school climate is not “out there”—in the hands of an organization with a distinct political agenda—but in here, in the school and in the school-to-community relationship.
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