Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), originally Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, was founded in Chicago in 1913 to fight antisemitism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination. In 2009, ADL became independent of B’nai B’rith and changed its name to Anti-Defamation League. Its activities include investigation and documentation of antisemitism, extremism, and other forms of hate in the United States; and litigation, education, and policy advocacy regarding the subjects of antisemitism, extremism, hate, the Holocaust, and civil rights. ADL is a strong supporter of Israel. ADL’s headquarters are in New York City, with regional offices across the country and in Israel.

In 1913, Leo Frank, Jewish manager of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, as well as president of the local B’nai B’rith lodge, was wrongly convicted of having murdered a 13-year-old girl. Frank was then lynched in 1915 by an angry mob shortly after the judge commuted his death sentence. In the year of Frank’s trial with its related incidents of antisemitism and injustice, Sigmund Livingston, a Chicago lawyer, proposed creating the Anti-Defamation League under the auspices of B’nai B’rith. ADL was founded with a dual mission “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

ADL’s early activities were concerned mainly with countering antisemitic expressions and stereotypes on the stage, in film, and in print media. Beginning in the 1930s, ADL documented and fought to counteract discrimination against Jews by hotels and resorts, and later, general discrimination by social clubs. During World War II, ADL established organizations to embark on public education campaigns to fight prejudice, antisemitism, and bigotry. The organizations included the Institute for American Democracy, which promoted democratic principles and cooperation between all races, religions, and classes; one of its well-known posters showed Superman telling a group of students that talking against anyone because of their religion, race, or national origin is un-American; the Institute for Democratic Education, which fought prejudice and discrimination via radio programs such as “The American Dream”; Appreciate America, which produced posters and cartoons that endorsed diversity, racial equality, and patriotism; and Dolls for Democracy (a joint program with B’nai B’rith Women), which consisted of women who volunteered to teach children about the meaning of democracy through storytelling presentations with handmade dolls.

After World War II, ADL partnered with Bess Myerson, who was crowned the first Jewish Miss America in 1945. When Myerson encountered antisemitism on her tour of the country, ADL arranged an alternate speaking tour for her, with the theme, “You can’t be beautiful and hate.” Many of Myerson’s speaking engagements were at high schools and colleges, where she reached out to young people, promoting values of tolerance and empathy for people from all religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.

ADL sought to protect the separation of church and state and the rights of religious minorities in education, filing an amicus brief in the 1948 Supreme Court case McCollum v. Board of Education that argued for the unconstitutionality of “released time” for religious instruction in public school classrooms. It fought against quotas for Jewish students in college and university admissions.

ADL campaigned for civil rights in the United States, joining with other civil rights groups to call for an end to discrimination in housing, employment, and education. In 1949, it published “How to Stop Violence! Intimidation! In Your Community,” which described anti-mask legislation designed to combat activities of the Ku Klux Klan. ADL filed a joint amicus brief in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, stating that “segregation deprives millions of persons of rights that are freely enjoyed by others and adversely affects the entire democratic structure of our society.”

In 1960 ADL commissioned sociologists at the University of California, Berkeley, to conduct surveys measuring antisemitic sentiment in the United States. The project resulted in the publication of a series of rigorous and detailed examinations of American antisemitism. ADL strongly supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. ADL leaders, including National Director Benjamin R. Epstein, participated in the Selma to Montgomery Marches.

In the 1970s ADL began developing Holocaust education, which expanded to include the Hidden Child Foundation (Holocaust survivors), the Bearing Witness program (to train Catholic school educators), and later, Echoes and Reflections (to support educators in teaching about the Holocaust). In the 1980s ADL launched anti-bias training programs for educational and workplace settings through its A World of Difference Institute and its No Place for Hate program. It began publishing the Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, an annual survey of antisemitic threats, harassment, and violence in the United States.

ADL joined with other groups to lobby for the Hate Crime Statistics Act, passed in 1990, which required states to collect data on crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

In the 21st century, ADL founded the Center on Extremism to focus on monitoring, exposing, and disrupting extremist threats, and the Center for Technology and Society to recommend policy and product interventions to mitigate online hate and harassment.