Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) will introduce legislation on Thursday requiring the National Education Association to expand its federal charter to prohibit the nation’s largest teachers’ union from “engaging in electoral politics or lobbying” in response to the group’s proposal to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Lummis began working on the STUDENT Act in response to the NEA’s representative assembly, the union’s governing body, voting earlier this month at an annual leadership conference to adopt a measure barring teachers from using, endorsing or publicizing any materials from the ADL. The NEA’s board of directors announced on Friday it would not implement the contentious resolution after determining that it “would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership or our goals.”

In addition to the moratorium on involvement in political causes, the bill would add language to the NEA charter banning the “promotion of antisemitic beliefs, including harmful stereotypes about Jewish people, Holocaust denial or minimization, and hatred based on Jewish identity or connection to Israel,” according to a readout from Lummis’ office. It would also bar the organization from “promoting or requiring adherence to critical race theory concepts,” eliminate the union’s tax-exempt status in Washington, prevent them from “calling strikes or work stoppages” and require “all NEA officers to be U.S. citizens.”

Lummis said in a statement on the bill that the NEA had “exploited its federal charter to advance a radical political agenda that puts ideology before education.”

“Federal charters should be reserved for organizations that serve patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purposes — not for unions that push divisive and antisemitic ideologies,” Lumis said.

Lummis told JI she found the NEA’s original decision on the ADL “to be completely ridiculous and misguided.”

“The fact that such a resolution passed the representative assembly — made up of thousands of NEA members — was reason enough for me to be concerned. Our educational institutions should be strengthening their partnerships with organizations committed to protecting Jewish Americans and combating hatred, not severing these important ties,” Lummis explained, referencing the more than 6,000 union delegates who took part in the three voice votes that were ultimately called in favor of the measure. 

The Wyoming senator said the developments prompted her “to examine the NEA’s charter more closely, which revealed how significantly the organization has deviated from its original mission and misused its federally granted charter privileges.”

“It’s evident that the NEA lacks the leadership and vision necessary for self-correction, which is why I’m proposing this legislation. We cannot allow the NEA and other federally chartered organizations to slide toward antisemitic positions,” she told JI. 

Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) cosponsored the bill. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) is working on companion legislation on the House side.

“The NEA long ago transformed from an educational association into a political machine, pushing a progressive agenda that puts activists ahead of students’ needs. The STUDENT Act reins in NEA’s federal charter, restores accountability, and demands a return to its original purpose: educating, not indoctrinating, American children,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.