FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 20, 2025

Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected] 

CODEPINK Applauds UTLA for Urging LAUSD to Drop the ADL & Oppose AB 1468 to Police Ethnic Studies

LOS ANGELES - CODEPINK applauds the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)  for voting to resist fascism and genocide during authoritarian times. With support from CODEPINK and activists with Jewish Voice for Peace, UTLA members of the union’s House of Representatives (HOR), voted overwhelmingly to oppose AB 1468 to police ethnic studies –and voted to urge the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to drop the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a partner in professional development and curriculum adoption. 

UTLA joins organizations across the country objecting to the ADL’s conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism and for attacks on Muslims and peace activists. The ADL recently sided with the Trump administration in arresting and detaining U.S. citizen Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who led protests against US-armed Israeli genocide in Gaza.

CODEPINK organizer, Marcy Winograd, an elected member of the UTLA House of Reps, applauded the union’s principled stand. “I am proud to be a member of a union leading the resistance,” said Winograd, adding, “Educators must not allow genocide-deniers like the ADL to flood our schools with propaganda that smears peace activists, conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism and celebrates crackdowns on schools and universities. The ADL–with its history of surveillance – pushes an agenda that undermines peace and justice. These are perilous times when we must unite to challenge white supremacy and totalitarian tactics.”

UTLA recently offered antisemitism training that focused on the historical context of antisemitism and the role of white supremacy in promoting racial and ethnic hatred. 

CODEPINK also thanks UTLA for voting overwhelmingly to oppose AB 1468, legislation that would restrict the scope of ethnic studies to “domestic” issues and discourage inquiry into the causes of marginalization of ethnic groups. 

“How do you teach a lesson on proposed reparations for slavery when you are prohibited from discussing the Atlantic slave trade? We need to fund ethnic studies, not saddle it with more costs to police language and bloat the state bureaucracy,” Winograd said.

For more information about CODEPINK’S campaign to expel the ADL from school, please contact Marcy Winograd at [email protected]. 

To see the testimony of Winograd and other activists urging the LAUSD school board to drop the ADL, click here.

For information on the national Drop the ADL from Schools campaign, click here.

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