MTA statement on reviewing member resources on the conflict in the Middle East
MTA statement on reviewing member resources on the conflict in the Middle East
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy released the following statement regarding resources made available to MTA members about the war between Israel and Hamas:
The Massachusetts Teachers Association vigorously defends the right of all students and teachers to feel supported and included in our classrooms and unequivocally condemns antisemitism and Islamophobia and all other forms of hatred and discrimination.
We recognize that the conflict in the Middle East is complex and nuanced with longstanding historical, political, economic and cultural roots. We strive to help our members foster critical conversations and understanding with each other and with their students as they wrestle with the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
The MTA Board of Directors voted to share resources on this topic with MTA members. We recognize our responsibility to provide our members with materials that are accurate, diverse and balanced. MTA members and the MTA staff involved in developing the resulting web page of resources saw the work as fluid, curating items from various educational and media sources, with the understanding that links to materials would be added and deleted. The members-only page has numerous resources on how to teach about this and other conflicts, and includes materials from the Anti-Defamation League, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Facing History and Ourselves, the New York Times, the NEA, and many other respected sources.
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.
Images displayed at a Feb. 10 hearing by the Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism are not posted on the MTA’s website, but rather on outside websites, which are linked to the resources page. The links to the sites containing those offensive images will be removed.
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.
The way these resources were manipulated in such a fashion, so as to label the state’s largest union of educators as promoters of antisemitism, remains one of the more deplorable displays witnessed at the State House.
Legislators and leaders in the Commonwealth who are truly interested in combatting prejudice and hate have a willing ally in the MTA.