In response to legal action by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the United Auto Workers (UAW) Public Review Board ruled that the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) cannot expel four Nassau County Legal Aid attorneys who opposed ALAA’s virulently antisemitic and pro-Hamas resolution.
ALAA’s controversial resolution, issued just a month after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist massacre in Israel, was a 1,147-word diatribe against the Jewish state, offering only a brief, seven-word mention of Hamas’s atrocities. The resolution sparked widespread condemnation across the legal community, including from multiple nonprofit legal service providers employing ALAA members, such as the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, the Legal Aid Society of New York City, and the New York Legal Assistance Group. The Bronx Defenders also denounced a similarly antisemitic statement from its ALAA chapter.
The UAW Public Review Board—an independent body responsible for interpreting and enforcing the UAW constitution—overturned ALAA’s attempt to punish its own members. ALAA (UAW Local 2325) is based in New York.
Alongside challenging ALAA’s expulsion efforts within the union’s constitutional framework, the Brandeis Center is also representing three of the attorneys in a federal lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
“This censure of ALAA is well-deserved,” said Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and a veteran civil rights official who has served in two presidential administrations. “Our federal lawsuit details how it is illegal to expel members for standing up against antisemitism in their union. Now, the UAW’s own oversight body has confirmed that these expulsions violate the UAW’s own constitution. This ruling is a major victory for union democracy and a significant defeat for antisemitism. The Brandeis Center will continue to defend victims of antisemitism wherever they face discrimination—on campuses, in public schools, in workplaces, or in unions.”
After four Nassau County Legal Aid attorneys—three Jewish ALAA members and one Christian ally—filed a state lawsuit opposing the resolution, ALAA moved to expel them. The Brandeis Center swiftly appealed to the UAW International Executive Board, which dismissed the attorneys’ arguments and upheld the charges. The Brandeis Center then took the case to the UAW Public Review Board, a panel of distinguished labor law professors. In July 2024, the Brandeis Center also filed a federal lawsuit against ALAA to block the retaliatory expulsions, a case that remains ongoing. This week, the UAW oversight board ruled in favor of the Nassau County Legal Aid attorneys, nullifying the union charges against them and dealing a significant blow to ALAA’s anti-Israel activists.
“Many ALAA members found the October 7 massacre of Jews exhilarating; they should find this rebuke from the UAW’s own review board sobering,” said Hon. Rory Lancman, the Brandeis Center’s Senior Counsel and a former Democratic New York State Assemblyman and New York City Councilman. “ALAA’s Jewish and allied members, as well as their clients, deserve better than the giddy antisemitism and blatant lawlessness that have consumed ALAA since October 7, 2023. We look forward to continuing this fight in federal court.”
