SCOOP: HELP Committee criticizes teachers union head for meeting with Zohran Mamdani: “Zohran Mamdani and the NEA continue to advance radical left policies that endanger Jewish students and families”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with the head of one of America’s most powerful teachers unions, prompting Republicans on the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) to blast the union for its “radical left policies.”

Becky Pringle posted a picture of her and Mamdani on her BlueSky account, writing that it was a “pleasure and an honor to meet @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social at last week’s NAACP board meeting—let’s fight for affordability for working families everywhere.”

Pringle, the head of the National Education Association (NEA), runs a labor union that is regularly criticized by many on and off the Hill for its record on anti-Semitism. A HELP Committee spokesperson noted to the Reporter that “anti-Semitism is on the rise, especially in our classrooms and workplaces. Yet Zohran Mamdani and the NEA continue to advance radical left policies that endanger Jewish students and families. The HELP Committee will continue to hold them accountable and protect Jewish New Yorkers.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), the Chair of the HELP Committee, has been a particularly strident critic of NEA, criticizing it for “promoting Antisemitism in children’s classrooms, ostracizing Jewish members.”

His committee has already pressed the NEA on anti-Semitism problems, writing to it that it has “lost sight” of its congressionally chartered purpose in 2025, for example. 

The NEA has also faced major legal hurdles from outside of Congress; in one instance, the Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Antisemitism filed a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that “the NEA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by allowing antisemitism to spread in K-12 schools throughout the country,” Columbia University’s Jeffrey Lax noted. “According to the complaint, the nation’s largest union has subjected Jewish members to discrimination, including limiting and denying them opportunities for leadership, mentoring, and training. The NEA is accused of creating a hostile work environment for Jews, permitting and promoting antisemitism in the public school system, and harming Jewish teachers and students.”