CODEPINK, the activist group known for anti-war protests, is now turning its attention to American schools. And that should alarm every parent.
On June 16, 17, and 18, CODEPINK held three workshops targeting K–12 education. The sessions laid out ways to remove ADL materials and partnerships from public schools, challenge Holocaust education, pressure school boards, mobilize teachers and parents, and create high school activist clubs.
The goal was clear: bring CODEPINK’s politics into classrooms and shape what children are taught.
The most disturbing part is how openly the workshops framed Jewish institutions and Holocaust education as the enemy. The CODEPINK site said the workshop aimed to teach attendees “how the ADL uses Holocaust education to justify state violence and silence the Palestinian movement.”
That is not a small accusation. It tells teachers, parents, and students to view Holocaust education as propaganda. It tells them to distrust one of the country’s best-known Jewish civil-rights organizations. It turns Jewish memory into something suspicious.
Holocaust education exists because students need to understand what antisemitism is, how it spreads, and where it can lead. Presenting it as a political weapon weakens one of the clearest tools schools have to fight anti-Jewish hate.
Marcy Winograd, campaign coordinator for CODEPINK’s “Drop the ADL” campaign, made the strategy even clearer. She called for “collective civil disobedience on the part of teachers,” including “refusing to take down the Palestinian flag” and “just outright refusal.”
Teachers have enormous influence over children. When an activist group encourages them to resist school rules and bring political messaging into classrooms, parents should be deeply concerned.
The workshops also pushed student activism. A high school teacher and sponsor of an SJP club said, “Any action we take, doesn’t matter what the action is, it’s in the right direction if it’s for Palestinian rights and freedoms. Period. End of story. Doesn’t matter.”
No teacher should tell students that “any action” is acceptable if it serves a political cause. Schools are supposed to teach responsibility, judgment, and respect for others. They should not train students to believe that activism excuses everything.
Winograd also described Holocaust education as “teaching teachers how to teach the Holocaust to legitimize the necessity of a Jewish ethnostate and to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.” She encouraged teachers to resist and challenge participation in Holocaust education training.
The target is clear: weaken trust in Holocaust education, weaken trust in Jewish organizations, and push schools toward CODEPINK’s political worldview.
This is how antisemitism can enter schools under the cover of curriculum reform.
It does not always arrive with slurs. Sometimes it arrives as a lesson plan. Sometimes it appears as a workshop for teachers. Sometimes it is framed as “liberation,” “equity,” or “student voice.” But when the message teaches children to view Jewish institutions as manipulative and Holocaust education as propaganda, the result is dangerous.
Jewish students already face rising hostility in American schools and colleges. They are asked to answer for political events they did not cause. They are excluded from social spaces. They are pressured to distance themselves from parts of their identity. They are told that Jewish safety concerns are really attempts to silence others. CODEPINK’s workshops would make that climate worse.
Parents should know when outside activist groups are trying to influence what their children are taught. School boards should know when teachers are being encouraged to defy policies. Jewish families should know when Holocaust education is being attacked as propaganda.
Students can learn about difficult issues. They can learn about suffering, conflict, history, discrimination, and human rights. But they should not be fed one-sided narratives that teach suspicion toward Jewish institutions or undermine Holocaust education.
CODEPINK’s campaign is dangerous because it targets children before they are old enough to understand the complexity of what they are being taught.
If these ideas take root in elementary and high schools, they will not stop there. They will follow students onto college campuses, into student organizations, into protests, and into public life.
Parents, school boards, and education leaders should take this seriously before CODEPINK’s agenda spreads any further.
Anna Miller is the spokesperson for Protect Our Campus, a non-partisan organization documenting extremism, antisemitism, and institutional failures in education and campus spaces.
Image generated by ChatGPT.