In a post-October 7 world where Jews are under siege, one of the root causes of this treacherous environment are teachers’ unions. These unions once focused on educator rights and student outcomes, but many have been captured by radical activists who are fixated on attacking Israel. One might ask what Israel’s war against Hamas has at all to do with teacher salaries and benefits and why unions are so monomaniacally focused on destroying Israel. Still, using their vast resources and political power, teachers’ unions institutionalize antisemitism and anti-Zionism on college and K-12 campuses around the country. Contrary to their original missions, they are now creating hostile campus environments for professors and students, and they are poisoning academic discourse.
One of the worst offenders is the California Faculty Association (CFA), which represents over 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches across California State University (CSU), a statewide system. Despite CFA’s size, it carries out its anti-Israel agenda largely under the radar. CSU is not as nationally recognized as other statewide school systems, such as University of California, and California politicians and media are largely aligned with CFA’s views. Accordingly, without political or media resistance, CFA has been able to entrench itself statewide and institutionalize antisemitism through the CSU system. Fortunately, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launched an investigation into antisemitism at CSU and CFA’s key role in creating that hostile environment.
CFA is claiming that the investigation is politically motivated, but that is false. I know because my law firm, Holtzman Vogel, alongside StandWithUs, represents Jewish professors at CSU who have suffered at the hands of CFA. Our clients have been bullied, harassed, and ostracized by CSU reps simply for being Jewish and supporting Israel, and many more are coming forward. They receive a barrage of anti-Israel emails from CFA, as it has access to the faculty directory and a bully pulpit from which to broadcast its propaganda. CFA makes incessant and inflammatory statements that absurdly blame Israel for terrorism, that spout conspiracy theories about Jews, and that openly support the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In addition to being immoral, CFA’s support for BDS likely violates state law, AB 2844, which prohibits California from contracting with entities that engage in discrimination, including against Jews or Israelis.
Notably, CFA does not try to hide that it has shifted its mission away from helping all teachers. It proudly calls itself a “social justice” and “anti-racist” organization, which really means an activist group with an anti-Western and anti-Israel agenda. To that end, CFA has demonstrated unwavering disdain for Jewish safety, identity, and belief. Two days after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack—the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust—a CFA chapter vice president posted in support of the massacre, which he called legitimate “resistance.” He was not disciplined and is now a chapter president. A CFA Instagram account also recently envisioned a world “free of Zionism”—Zionism being a central religious belief held by most Jews. Erasing Zionism isn’t a political critique; it’s a direct attack on Jewish identity and many of CFA’s constituents. CFA also repeatedly accuses Israel of genocide, an utterly false blood libel that should be discrediting to any person or institution that repeats it, much less an institution consisting of academics.
CFA’s radicalism is not limited to rhetoric. CFA has aggressively lobbied against AB 715, a California law that would curb campus antisemitism, something that a properly functioning union should welcome. The union has also been defending a CSU professor who was indicted for politically motivated violence against federal officers—this at a time when political violence is at a crisis point. CFA and its reps have also repeatedly called for a globalized “intifada,” which means violent uprising against Jews. These calls for intifada have manifested in, for example, the murder of an innocent couple outside the Holocaust museum in D.C. and many other violent acts against Jews around the world.
Beyond its vast resources, CFA has thousands of soldiers on the ground executing its mission by bullying the small group of Jewish professors into submission. Some CFA members have joined illegal encampments and building takeovers, activities that endanger students and professors and that disrupt campus life. The message to Jewish professors is clear: get on board with our anti-Israel mission or you will feel the full weight of our institution against you. This is the opposite of what a teachers’ union should be permitted to do.
Unions like CFA cross legal limits when they become activist groups that ostracize or threaten minorities. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibit workplace discrimination based on religion and national origin, but they also prohibit aiding and abetting such discrimination, which is precisely what CFA does. Title VI likewise bans discrimination in federally funded education programs. Through its actions, CFA has helped create an environment where Jewish faculty feel unsafe, silenced, and discriminated against based on their protected class status.
CFA is no longer a normal union, and it doesn’t pretend to be one. It is a powerful activist organization advancing an extremist agenda. It is time for real accountability and a renewed commitment to the rule of law on our campuses.
Mark Pinkert is a partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel. His practice is focused on religious freedom, First Amendment rights, and combatting antisemitism, especially on college campuses.