Civil rights group blocks union’s expulsion of Nassau Legal Aid attorneys

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Four Nassau County Legal Aid attorneys will not be expelled for opposing a resolution from their union, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA).

The union had issued a resolution condemning Israel for the war with Hamas following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. But the four attorneys, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law said, opposed the resolution, viewing it as “virulently antisemitic and pro-Hamas.”

“The board’s ruling is a major victory for union democracy, and, of course, a defeat for antisemitism,” Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center who served in two presidential administrations, said in a news release about the public review board’s ruling. “The Brandeis Center will defend victims of anti-Semitism wherever they are – on campuses, in public schools, in workplaces, or in unions.”

The attorneys filed a lawsuit in state court to stop the resolution, prompting the union to seek to expel them.

But after legal action taken by the Brandeis Center, the United Auto Workers (UAW) Public Review Board last week ruled against the ALAA. The ALAA union is part of the UAW Local 2325.

The resolution claimed that Israel had a “colonial apartheid occupation” of Gaza. In response, The Legal Aid Society said in a statement that the resolution was “coded with antisemitic language and thinly veiled calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.”

The Brandeis Center had appealed the decision to expel the four attorneys to the UAW International Executive Board, which upheld the charges. The Brandeis Center then took the case to the UAW Public Review Board, made up of labor law professors. This week, the oversight board ruled in favor of the Nassau Legal Aid lawyers, overturning the union charges against them.

The ALAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July 2024, the Brandeis Center had also filed a federal district court complaint against the ALAA to stop the expulsion, which is still pending.

Rory Lancman, the Brandeis Center’s senior counsel and a former Democratic New York State assemblyman and New York City councilman said the ALAA “was consumed” with “giddy antisemitism” since Oct. 7, 2023.

“The ALAA’s Jewish and allied members, and their clients, deserve better…” he said in the news release.

“Our federal lawsuit details how it is illegal to expel members who stand up for what’s right and oppose anti-Semitism in their union, and now the UAW’s own outside monitor has said that doing so violates the UAW’s own constitution,” Marcus said.