At the National Education Association’s national convention this summer, attendees adopted business items that committed the teachers’ union to opposing President Donald Trump’s agenda in general and the deportation of illegal immigrants in particular.

Information about the NEA event, which was closed to the public, indicates that union activists focused far more time on left-wing political activism than on improving schools or student outcomes in the classroom.

The event has fueled demand for Congress to revoke the NEA’s federal charter. Several lawmakers are working to end the NEA’s special status, including U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Oklahoma.

The NEA is the parent organization of the Oklahoma Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in Oklahoma.

The NEA convention’s actions were leaked to Corey A. DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Culture Project, who shared several delegate-approved agenda items on social media.

New Business Item 60, which was approved by NEA members, declared that the “NEA pledges to defend democracy against Trump’s embrace of fascism by using the term facism [sic] in NEA materials to correctly characterize Donald Trump’s program and actions.”

DeAngelis noted the original NEA resolution misspelled fascism as “facism.”

New Business Item 66 committed the NEA to oppose the closing of the federal Department of Education, declaring any elimination of the federal agency a “racist attempt to destroy public education and privatize it in the interest of billionaires.”

Should the federal Department of Education be shuttered, many of its functions would either shift to other federal agencies or be handled by state departments of education. Closure of the federal agency would not mandate privatization of any government-run public schools.

New Business Item 59 dedicated the NEA to defending “birthright citizenship,” the practice of conferring American citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in this country after a mother’s illegal entry.

New Business Item 63 declared that the NEA would oppose federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts that ensure compliance with immigration law, which the union characterized as “kidnapping of student leaders,” and vowed the NEA would support “students’ rights to organize against ICE raids and deportations.”

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent efforts have included activities such as the Michigan arrest of Kleiber Siso Balza, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela who is a suspected member of the foreign terrorist organization Tren De Aragua; the Pennsylvania arrest of Yobani Bonilla-Bonilla (a.k.a. Gilberto Perez-Alvarado), a 29-year-old citizen of Honduras wanted in Honduras for homicide; and the Massachusetts arrest of El Salvadorian national Victor Vasquez Cordova, a Level 1 registered sex offender with a past conviction for possession of child sexual abuse material.

The NEA’s 2025 annual meeting was similar, in many respects, to those held in recent years. In 2024, NEA delegates voted to use their perches as public-school teachers to promote transgenderism by pushing back against state laws that prohibit males from using girls’ bathrooms in public schools or playing in girls’ sports, as well as state laws that prohibit doctors from providing children with cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or sex-change surgeries. Oklahoma is among the states with those laws. A state ban on sex-change surgeries for minors was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

The National Education Association is the only union with a federal charter. The NEA was granted that special privilege in 1906.

Now, some lawmakers are looking to end that special treatment.

U.S. Rep. Mark Harris, R-North Carolina, and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, have introduced the National Education Association Charter Repeal Act.

“Congress established the NEA in 1906 to support America’s teachers and strengthen our schools, but it has abandoned that mission in favor of a radical agenda,” Harris said. “From branding President Trump a fascist to embracing divisive gender ideology and walking away from efforts to fight antisemitism, the NEA has become nothing more than a partisan advocacy group. Since the NEA is clearly not prioritizing students, parents, or even teachers, it’s time to remove Congress’ seal of approval from this rogue organization.”

“Time and again, teachers’ unions have shown they’ll put their political agenda ahead of students’ needs,” Blackburn said. “The National Education Association has made it crystal clear it’s a partisan organization, and it shouldn’t be rewarded with a federal charter that platforms woke gender ideology, antisemitism, and left-wing propaganda. Our students deserve better.”

Brecheen is a co-sponsor of the bill.

“It’s time to hold the super-woke NEA accountable and stop the forced indoctrination of our educators!” Brecheen wrote in a post on X.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, filed similar legislation in 2022.

In a statement to Education Week, NEA President Becky Pringle responded to the bill by declaring that “some anti-public education politicians are now introducing legislation to repeal the National Education Association charter because the billionaires that fund their campaigns don’t want educators to have a voice.”