Four Jewish teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) filed a lawsuit over being compelled to provide dues to the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) despite leaving the union over what they see as antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in UTLA.
The lawsuit, which was obtained by The Journal, lists the members of the California Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) and LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho as defendants. Under state law, PERB certifies UTLA as the sole bargaining representative for LAUSD teachers; Carvalho, according to the lawsuit, “oversees and manages the collective bargaining process between the LAUSD bargaining unit and UTLA, and approved the resulting CBA.” The CBA states that LAUSD teachers will have their UTLA dues automatically deducted from their payroll. Thus, the four Jewish teachers are still being compelled to pay UTLA dues despite having sincere religious objections to the union’s activities, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit accuses UTLA of “longstanding antisemitic speech and public positions” as well as harassing and discriminating “against Jewish and Zionist teachers who are forced to associate with UTLA because of exclusive representation.” Since the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, UTLA has “refused to allow pro-Israel and Zionist members to participate in Zoom meetings” while those participating in the Zoom were allowed to have “overtly anti-Israel background screens.” Additionally, the lawsuit notes that UTLA’s Political Action Council of Educators (PACE) endorsed school board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim in Nov. 2023; Al-Alim “has an extensive number of public antisemitic posts on both Twitter/X and Instagram, including blood libel, conspiracy theories and anti-Zionist rhetoric.” The Journal has previously reported that Al-Alim issued an apology for a post on X calling a Nation of Islam book “required reading” and that he has “spent my life fighting against antisemitism, anti-Arab hate, Islamophobia, and all forms of oppression.”
UTLA allegedly pressured a Jewish member “to stop disclosing Mr. Al-Alim’s positions, and subsequently [the] UTLA removed all evidence of the endorsement from its website a few hours before the election,” the lawsuit states. “However, this did not stop UTLA from donating $728,887.44 to Mr. Al-Alim’s campaign.”
The lawsuit also notes that the UTLA house of representatives voted to support the UCLA anti-Israel encampments in June, and that Jewish members who spoke out against UTLA voting on anti-Israel resolutions and motions in March and April “were harassed and removed” from meetings. Meanwhile, UTLA has failed “to express support for the victims” of the Oct. 7 massacre.
The UTLA house of representatives voted to support the UCLA anti-Israel encampments in June, and that Jewish members who spoke out against UTLA voting on anti-Israel resolutions and motions in March and April “were harassed and removed” from meetings.
The union is also an advocate of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (LESMC) and that “the Ethnic Studies material taught in LAUSD is heavily influenced by the LESMC and denounces the State of Israel,” per the lawsuit. The lawsuit points to an April 2021 ethnic studies panel training hosted by UTLA in which Celine Qussiny, a “Palestine Studies” expert, told attendees that “we must always be confronting Zionism.” She called Zionism a “settler-colonial ideology that justifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland” and that Israel is a “fascist dictatorship.” Further, UTLA has offered “Teach Palestine” training for teachers that omits how relevant Israel is to Judaism.
The lawsuit also claims to have evidence of an August 2024 UTLA conference where members discussed how to be “anti-Israel in the classrooms without getting fired.” During this meeting, “UTLA staff spread antisemitic talking points by falsely implying that a Jewish cabal accused an anti-Israel teacher of possessing child pornography ‘because of this issue,’ so that the teacher would stop teaching anti-Israel information to his students.”
Further, the lawsuit accuses UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz of claiming during a Zoom meeting that signing a petition advocating against a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war would be “white supremacy” and that “UTLA administrators and officials referred to Jewish parents as those ‘Europeans, white oppressors in the Valley’” as well as “those Middle Easterners in the rich areas of Los Angeles” during meetings.
The lawsuit alleges that even before the Oct. 7 massacre, UTLA has excluded Jewish and Zionist members from their Facebook group, Myart-Cruz referred to the Museum of Tolerance as “the enemy,” and the union’s house of representatives passed a motion supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The plaintiffs believe that UTLA has fostered a hostile environment against Jewish and pro-Israel teachers and students in the district, which is why they have resigned from the union and no longer wish to have their wages go toward UTLA dues.
“In the aftermath of the deadly Hamas attacks, UTLA used membership dues to subsidize anti-Semitic school board candidates, curriculum and rhetoric,” Shella Alcabes, the Freedom Foundation’s California litigator, said in a statement. “When educators objected, UTLA retaliated by intimidating Jewish teachers and barring dissenters from union activities. Our lawsuit seeks to put an end to this and hold UTLA accountable.” The Freedom Foundation is representing the plaintiffs.
A spokesperson from PERB told the Journal that “the board is reviewing the lawsuit and has no comment at this time.” A LAUSD spokesperson told The Journal that the district “does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.” UTLA did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.
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