Editorial: May 24, 2024: MTA oversteps mandate
Educators, like journalists, share a similar and special responsibility in being truthful and accurate.
Educators, like journalists, share a similar and special responsibility in being truthful and accurate.
Educators, like journalists, share a similar and special responsibility in being truthful and accurate.
On its website, the Massachusetts Teachers Association describes itself as “a union dedicated to improving the workplace and the quality of life for all education employees and to protecting their hard-won rights.”
Fair enough. And it is safe to assume that none of the MTA’s 117,000 members would take issue with that mission statement. The same cannot be said of the union’s recent public statements regarding the situation in Gaza, stemming from the attack by Hamas on Israel.
Late last gall, the MTA — in a statement approved only by its executive board — called for a permanent cease-fire and specifically called out the Israeli government’s “genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
In March, they hosted a webinar to help educators teach about anti-Palestinian racism. The ADL criticized the event for reinforcing what it called “antisemitic and anti-Israel falsehoods.” That’s putting it mildly.
Among the speakers was a UMass Boston professor who, in an online commentary a week after Oct. 7, extolled the courage of people hang-gliding over the border — ignoring the fact that these were terrorists on a mission to kidnap, rape, and murder Israelis.
You might wonder why a teachers’ union in Massachusetts would wade into foreign affairs, especially in an area as emotionally and historically fraught as the Middle East. Many of the union’s members have wondered that as well while some local teachers’ unions have broken publicly with the MTA over the issue.
In defending the board against charges of anti-Semitism, MTA President Max Page said, “There is a real danger in our society today when we make grand pronouncements about the essence of one person or another.” We’d remind Mr. Page that the inapt use of an incendiary word like “genocide” is in itself the kind of “grand pronouncement” he says he objects to.
Educators, like journalists, share a similar and special responsibility in being truthful and accurate, as well as communicating the kind of nuance and context that is vital to real understanding. Supporting that aspect of educating should very much be part of the MTA’s core mission. Straying irresponsibly into hurtful sloganeering and political minefields while alienating its own members surely isn’t. Shame on the MTA for its misguided bias and for not doing its homework. Their own students would be held to higher standards, and the MTA should be as well.