Barb Dougan
As has been previously reported in Mass Dissent, the legislature created the Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism by way of a budget amendment in 2024, bypassing the usual legislative process and preventing any opportunity for public comment. The SCCA is tasked with making recommendations for new state laws and policies addressing antisemitism. The NLG has been part of the Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts (TIM) coalition that mobilized to demand a transparent and inclusive process that addresses antisemitism using an anti-racist, solidarity framework. TIM rejects partisan efforts to exclude Jewish people who are critical of Israel or to redefine antisemitism in a way that harms Palestinians.
One-sided meetings. At its public meetings, the SCCA co-chairs typically invite only those speakers who align with their agenda, a big part of which is to stifle criticism of Israel. That was certainly true at the Commission meetings on K-12 education, which excluded important testimony from non-Zionist Jewish academics with subject matter expertise on topics including antisemitism, Title VI, the Holocaust, and Jewish American history. To help the Commission consider a more unifying and constructive approach, TIM offered a wealth of resources for addressing antisemitism in our schools while defending against curriculum censorship and chilling of classroom discussions with threats of discipline again students and educators.
Disappointing draft recommendations. On July 2nd, the SCCA issued its draft recommendations on K-12 education, which would expand a punitive culture of discipline, widen the role of police in our schools, create a system of anonymous reporting so that students, families, and staff can report one another, and mandate antisemitism training for teachers that is “informed” by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism – which explicitly includes criticism of Israel.[1] Equally worrisome, the recommendations did not seem to reflect an awareness of best practices in teaching and learning.
We can do better! TIM issued a critique of the draft recommendations and urged the SCCA to get input from both the public as well as those experts whose viewpoints have been excluded. Our allies at Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff issued a similar statement.
Doubling down: final recommendations. Instead of incorporating any of TIM’s or CJFS’s feedback, or even inviting any meaningful engagement, the SCCA released its final recommendations before its August 7 meeting, where they would be voted on. The updated recommendations now included a purported “finding” that echoed Heritage Foundation talking points about supporters of Palestinian human rights, referring to “pro-Hamas” and “left-wing ideologies,” and “terrorist sympathizing gestures and speech.” In addition, the SCCA co-chairs insisted that using the IHRA definition will not lead to suppression of criticism of Israel because the definition is non-binding (while simultaneously arguing that it is already state policy, based on a proclamation issued by former Gov. Baker). This claim provides little comfort, given that “Israel” and “Israeli” appear 26 times in the recommendations; curiously, “Judaism” appears only once.
In response, TIM and CJFS issued a joint statement, calling on the Commission to delay its vote to allow for public comment. They also generated over 2,000 messages to legislators, urging them to call for a delay.
The vote & a modest disruption. When it became clear that the Commission planned to vote on the recommendations, TIM decided to engage in a minor act of civil obedience. During a pause in the proceedings, a young Jewish woman stood and read a brief statement while other TIM supporters held up small signs saying, “Delay the Vote.” Gavels were banged, the room was cleared, security was called, and signs were seized – all in response to a two-minute attempt to be heard after 10 months of discriminatory exclusion. The Commissioners returned to unanimously vote in favor of the recommendations.
What happens next? It is unclear whether any legislative action is needed before the recommendations can be implemented – after all, the SCCA was created to advise the legislature, not to be independent policy makers – or if the new polices can be implemented as is by the state’s education officials. Significantly, the recommendations do not refer to the need for legislative approval, which is consistent with the Commission’s pattern of avoiding a democratic process and shutting out public input.
What you can do. Contact your legislators! Tell them you expect state educational policies to be the result of open, informed, and transparent debate, not the views of a few favored groups. Demand policies that protect all students, not ones that pit marginalized groups against one another. Insist that Massachusetts reject the weaponization of antisemitism as a way to silence critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
- Barb Dougan is the Legal Director at CAIR-MA.
[1] On July 15, 2025, the NLG and CAIR-MA joined dozens of others who testified at a hearing of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee in opposition to a bill that would impose the IHRA definition of antisemitism in a different context: as an amendment to the state’s main anti-discrimination law, G.L. c. 151B.
