What the ADL Is and Isn’t

It's a watchdog, not a lapdog, and definitely not a lobbyist

It’s popular In some quarters to vilify the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a political or lobbying organization when it is in actuality an independent watchdog concerned with monitoring and calling out violence against minorities and hateful actors in general.

Anti-Semites flourished before and after the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, and in recent years the threats against synagogues and Jewish people have escalated. The ADL was formed in the United States in 1913 to keep tabs on the numerous anti-Semitic groups around the world. Over time, they came to the conclusion that the best way to stop anti-Semitism was call out hate everywhere, because there is demonstrable proof that hate-filled organizations from the KKK to the Proud Boys have White Christian Nationalism and anti-Semitism at their core. (As always, apologies to actual Christians who have love in their hearts instead of hate.)

For more than century, the ADL has shone a light on the darkest corners of humanity exposing acculturated hate and fear of “the other.” It has created and stewarded various initiatives aimed at raising awareness of hateful groups and individuals.

Recognizing that hate is not an inherent characteristic of human nature, but a nurtured worldview that is usually, casually, taught in the home and spread in the schoolyard, the ADL, short of being able to teach tolerance in the home, because after all, it is everyone’s right to fill their kids with hate and prejudice at home, created the best defense for the minorities that are historically subjected to bullying. The initiative is called No Place For Hate.

Some consider the teaching of tolerance and messages of peace and conviviality to be a greater evil than hate and intolerance themselves. That’s why you’re hearing local school board candidates all over the country fighting against the teaching of any curriculum that isn’t strictly the three R’s.

I’m uncertain of their complete agenda. I see a lot of cutting and pasting of national thought leaders who espouse the view that public schools are “grooming” kids socially, academically, and even sexually. They’ve made a big point of talking up “local control” even as they promote a well-organized national agenda against the traditional role of public education. Some of the national organizations and their disseminators are on record as hoping to kill public schools entirely. Somehow, every nonacademic initiative that schools undertake comes under this rubric. They want our tax dollars to be fungible, going wherever parents want, including private and parochial schools.

It’s important to understand that their claims about the ADL are false. It is a watchdog, and a pretty effective one at that. It is not a lobbying organization. A few years ago it did spend $200,000 lobbying Congress to pass a national hate crime bill, but that is in line with its larger nonprofit, anti-hate mission. It is not in the same league as Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Coal, or Big Tobacco. To equate it with those groups that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on politicians and legislation designed to further their economic interests is just plain wrong, and the people who say otherwise know they are lying. They simply oppose schools teaching anything that involves social betterment, including tolerance, ethics, and decency.

The ADL mission is broad and protective of human rights. It is not perfect, and I have had my issues with leadership there, but we’re much better off with them fighting the good fight than thinking they should fold their tent and scram.

Just this week the ADL Center on Extremism reviewed the names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists, and outed 370 law enforcement officers, over 100 active military members and 80 who are currently running for office.

In the wake of the January 6th insurgent-driven Capitol riots, it has become clear that law enforcement and the military have attracted some who are more interested in hateful, racist authoritarianism than time-tested American values like generosity of spirit, honesty, trust, and working for the greater good as they try to protect society from the greater evils of prejudice and bigotry.

There have always been haters and social-underminers, and always will be. Theories abound regarding their motivations. Some are as simple as hating people who don’t look, pray, or talk like them, and some are as complicated as ascribing their hate to an insecurity that needs to denigrate more successful groups than the ones they relate to.

No Place For Hate seeks to nip hate in the bud, and make it socially unacceptable. Don’t shoot the messenger, or pretend the messenger has some unspoken and hidden agenda to do anything more than temper the hate we know exists, and lower the boiling point by teaching tolerance.

©2022 Jon Sinton