What is happening?

The Massachusetts Antisemitism Commission - an unelected, non-representative body - is planning to send sweeping recommendations to Massachusetts’ private and public schools to make talking or teaching about Palestine off limits in Massachusetts schools before the school year starts.

This commission is on track to make anti-Palestinian racism state policy, without any review or oversight from the legislature or the public.

After only 10 meetings, packed with one-sided testimony, and multiple admissions that commission members did not have expertise to offer guidance for K-12 education, the Commission has drafted a series of guidelines which conflate criticism of Israel, teaching or talking about Palestine with antisemitism. If these anti-Palestinian guidelines are sent to our school districts, they will likely be implemented uncritically, placing teachers, students and administrators at risk of lawsuits, complaints and retaliatory action for simply talking or teaching about Palestine.

Read the Together for an Inclusive MA’s and Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff’s joint letter to the Commission for more details.

What you can do!

Use this form to write and/or call your state legislators to urge them to assert democratic oversight over this broken process.

After you send the letter, consider these additional actions:

1. Attend the meeting to urge the commission to delay the vote (more information here)
2. Sign up to work with TIM to meet with your legislators (more information here)
3. Share this toolkit and ask everyone you know to support this effort and defend our freedom of speech and our democracy https://tinyurl.com/DontSayPal