Best Practices for Addressing Antisemitism within Associations

Academic associations play a vital role in fostering scholarly exchange, advancing knowledge and upholding professional integrity. As leaders within these organizations, it is essential to ensure that all members feel respected, safe and included – regardless of their identity or background. In recent years, concerns about antisemitism within academic spaces have grown, including instances of exclusion, bias and politicization that target Jewish, Israeli and Zionist individuals.

This guide is directed toward the elected leadership of professional academic organizations, including Boards, Executive Councils and Committees, as well as salaried leaders and staff. It offers best practices for identifying, addressing and preventing antisemitism within professional associations, while promoting open dialogue, intellectual pluralism and inclusive scholarship. This content is not intended and should not be interpreted to provide legal advice.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) urge the leadership of professional academic associations to address antisemitism and anti-Israel bias by adopting the best practices described below.

Leadership Responsibility and Best Practices for Combating Antisemitism

1. Understand and respect the fiduciary responsibility to the association.

• While governing boards and other elected councils and committees act as a body, individual board members typically have fiduciary duties. Board members are obligated to meet these responsibilities, and there can be legal, financial and reputational consequences for failing to do so.
• There are three essential fiduciary duties that individual board members may hold. Duty of Care requires making informed and carefully considered decisions in the best interest of the association or organization. Duty of Loyalty requires acting in the best interest of the association or organization, despite any board member's personal interests. Duty of Obedience obligates board members to ensure that the organization is adhering to its mission, bylaws and is acting in compliance with the law.
• Understanding and respecting fiduciary responsibility means acting in the best interest of the association and its members, which includes protecting the organization from reputational, legal, and ethical risks. While fiduciary responsibility includes an obligation to responsibly manage the association's financial resources, it also includes protecting the association from other risks such as legal and reputational risk. Failing to address antisemitism – whether through action or inaction – can expose associations to public backlash, loss of trust, and potential liability, undermining their mission and long-term sustainability.
• Governing boards and elected leaders and staff should be familiar with the association’s bylaws, including those that pertain to proposing and passing resolutions and policies.

2. Ensure that organizational policy stipulates that publicly released statements are aligned with the mission of the association.

• An argument can be made to connect almost any claim or cause to a scholarly society’s mission. As public statements and resolutions are considered, it is important to be honest about the parameters of the professional context. Consider whether the position being advocated reflects a consensus within the membership based on shared professional commitments and if it aligns with the association’s overall mission. Put differently, is the advocacy genuinely rooted in the mission, or is it promoting a particular cause regardless of broader member agreement? Also weigh the potentially debilitating effect on the association’s ability to carry out its mission if officials are sidetracked by the complications and fallout of overreaching advocacy. This does not mean that professional associations cannot commit to a set of ethical values. Rather, it is a way of enacting the principles of free inquiry and intellectual exchange, and supporting the right of individual members to freely advocate personally for their ideological positions.
• If divisive political statements have been made in the past, leadership should not hesitate to move in a different direction. It is never too late to change policy or to reverse course in order to remain consistent with the organization’s mission and bylaws. This should not be construed as hypocrisy; it is rather an instance of commendable organizational learning. Professional academic associations may suffer reputational and financial damage if they are viewed as overly partisan and politicized; it is therefore in their best interest that they be perceived as unbiased.

3. Establish and uphold clear codes of ethics, non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, and codes of conduct to guide organizational behavior and accountability.

• Add clauses prohibiting discrimination and harassment of Jewish members of the association, including those for whom Zionism is a central component of their faith identity, into relevant association commitments (e.g., diversity statements, codes of ethics, non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, and codes of conduct for meetings and conferences) and clearly convey and enforce these policies without exception.[7]
• Ensure that members are aware of these policies. Members should agree to follow such policies when they join the association, and reaffirm their commitment upon membership renewal.
• Encourage educational programs that explain the multifaceted nature of antisemitism. Ideally such programming would cover historical context, contemporary realities, and practical examples that are relevant to the association.
• Provide antisemitism awareness training for all association staff as part of anti-bias, anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training. Offer professional development opportunities to elected leadership to become better informed about antisemitism and the needs and concerns of Jewish, Zionist and Israeli members of the association.

4. Ensure that there are clear and easy processes for reporting antisemitic rhetoric and activity in the association.

This includes committing to investigate and respond to reports in a timely, transparent and serious manner.

• Be prepared to take tangible action to address antisemitic rhetoric and activity wherever it occurs, including at in-person meetings and conferences and in online fora, such as discussion boards and email listservs. Actions can range from public condemnation to sanctions and revised organizational policy. Consult with affected members regarding potential organizational responses.
  • Implement a transparent procedure for handling complaints, including holding hearings when appropriate and following a structured decision-making process aligned with organizational policies.
  • Consider forming a committee responsible for reviewing complaints in a fair, consistent, and timely manner.
• Any antisemitic remark and activity or harassing and bigoted mistreatment of Jewish members, including on account of their real or perceived ethnic ancestry and heritage or Zionist beliefs, should be publicly condemned. Communicate transparently with members about what has happened, why it is deeply offensive and troubling, and what steps the association is taking to support those negatively impacted and to ensure that it does not happen again.

5. Ensure that open inquiry, free expression and intellectual exchange are protected.

Academic and cultural boycotts are counter to the fundamental values of free inquiry and intellectual exchange that are the foundations of professional and academic associations. Boycotting academic institutions, for example, deprives students and faculty, as well as those who may want to collaborate with them, of educational and professional opportunities.[8]

• Boycott proposals often target Israeli academic and cultural institutions – which are among the most critical voices of government policy – as part of the broader call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), a movement that seeks to isolate Israel politically, economically, and culturally and explicitly rejects the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.[9] Consequently, Jewish, Zionist and Israeli members of associations considering anti-Israel boycotts often feel vilified and unfairly singled out for differential treatment. 
• Adopting an academic boycott of Israel’s system of higher education can also carry financial and legal risk, particularly as more than three dozen states have enacted anti-BDS legislation, executive orders, or resolutions.[10] Associations that endorse BDS may thus face legal challenges, contract restrictions, or financial penalties.
• Be aware that the BDS movement also encourages its supporters to “resist” educational programs and events that would “normalize” Israel, including those that support Israeli-Palestinian co-existence. Association leadership should ensure that proposals along such lines are not rejected from meetings and conferences by BDS advocates who are serving as proposal reviewers. In addition, while the BDS movement insists that only academic institutions are targeted, the reality is that those institutions are composed of, represent, and serve Israeli scholars and, as such, individual Israeli academics face shunning, ostracism and exclusion as a result of BDS.[11] Association leadership should monitor submissions and acceptances to conferences and journals to ensure that Israeli members are not being subjected to discriminatory practices.
• Ensure open and transparent discussion of how academic boycotts are inimical to the principles of open inquiry, free expression and unfettered intellectual exchange.

6. Ensure that the association’s investment policy specifies that investments may not be subject to politically motivated ideologies.

• As a fiduciary, association leadership should consider the implications of divestment for the association. If an association holds a diversified investment portfolio, over time divestment can lead to poorer performance. Implications may extend[12] beyond direct financial decline to the alienation of members, external reputational damage, and legal challenges.
• Association members have diverse political perspectives. As a result, politically motivated divestment will alienate some members, while gaining support from others. The absence of consensus and the ensuing divisiveness distracts from the association’s core mission, violates the association’s fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of all members of the association, and can result in lost revenue as disaffected members leave the association for other more welcoming and inclusive spaces.[13]
• Divestment proposals often target Israel directly or cast Israel as the sole aggressor in the complex and intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Divestment proposals are sometimes associated with the broader call for BDS. As such, they will be deeply alienating to many Jewish, Zionist and Israeli members of the association. Permitting and/or endorsing such proposals therefore risks breaching both the association’s fiduciary duty to uphold the collective interests and equitable treatment of all its members and policies related to non-discrimination based on national origin and shared ancestry and heritage.

7. Develop and enforce policies to ensure safe and full participation for all attendees at association events.

• Establish clear policies and procedures to ensure that all participants – regardless of background or viewpoint – can engage fully, safely, and respectfully in all association activities.
• Develop a policy to ensure that speakers and presenters align with the association’s mission and values, and do not promote discriminatory, biased, or exclusionary rhetoric that undermines the integrity of the event or the safety of attendees. This policy should include clear guidelines, a vetting process, and accountability measures to uphold respectful and mission-aligned discourse.
• Create protocols for managing disruptions. Such protocols should provide clear guidance regarding what conduct is prohibited, followed by a series of examples (e.g., shouting down speakers, blocking entrances, etc.).
  • While peaceful protests may be permitted in spaces adjacent to meeting activities, protesters should not be allowed to commandeer events or prevent virtual or in-person event programming from taking place. Scheduled programming is protected by academic freedom and free expression principles, while the “heckler’s veto” is not.
  • Clearly communicate disruption protocols to event attendees in advance, and consider asking attendees to confirm during registration that they understand all rules and policies regarding appropriate and reasonable time, place and manner for protests and demonstrations.
  • Clearly communicate consequences of any violations of rules and policies (e.g., removal from program, suspension or expulsion from association, etc.).
  • If disruptions that violate the association’s policies occur, leadership should take immediate steps to condemn these actions and to hold violators accountable.