2000s continued
With the rise in bias-driven bullying and online bullying, ADL develops new resources and programming on cyberbullying, including a toolkit for counteraction and model legislation to require schools to address the issue.
ADL files amicus briefs in federal courts throughout the country in support of victims of discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.
ADL files amicus briefs in court cases in states that have imposed draconian anti-immigration laws.
ADL helps lead the opposition to proselytizing and discriminatory aspects of the Bush Administration's Faith Based Initiative provisions, which would allow government funds to flow directly to religious organizations.
The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Boston is named in memory of longtime ADL New England Regional Director, Lenny Zakim. It stands as a symbol of Zakim's and ADL's work to build bridges of understanding among diverse groups of people.
ADL takes a lead role in exposing the virulent anti-Latino/a and anti-immigrant rhetoric surrounding the national debate over immigration and facilitates Latino/a-Jewish roundtables around the country.
ADL exposes the inherent antisemitism in Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's published accusations that an "Israel lobby" is forcing the U.S. government to adopt policies that are counter to American interests. ADL further renounces similar accusations in former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
ADL educates Americans on the security challenges confronting Israel during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and the conflicts in Gaza in 2008 and 2012, and provides background about the participants in the 2010 "Free Gaza" Flotilla incident and their associations with extremist and terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
ADL advocates for strong international sanctions to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, exposes European business dealings with Iran and launches the "Stop Nuclear Iran" information campaign.
In an effort to help address antisemitic and anti-Israel intimidation in schools and on campus, ADL lobbies for the Department of Education to include antisemitism and campus anti-Zionism within its ongoing civil rights enforcement authority.
ADL leads a coalition of religious and civil rights groups to support the passage of the most important update of national hate crimes laws in 40 years, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which is signed into law in 2009 after more than a decade of ADL advocacy.
ADL develops a program dedicated to monitoring, documenting and analyzing the prevalence of antisemitic, anti-Israel and extremist narratives in Arabic and Farsi language sources around the world.
In response to an intensified level of anti-Muslim bigotry and conspiracy theories about the infiltration of Sharia law, ADL exposes campaigns aimed at marginalizing Muslims and defends Muslims' religious freedom rights in the courts and state legislatures.
ADL convenes the national Interfaith Coalition on Mosques (ICOM), comprised of prominent individuals and organizations from different faith traditions, to assist Muslim communities who are confronting opposition to the legal building, expansion or relocation of their mosques.
ADL adopts policies publicly supporting equal access to civil marriage for same-sex couples and files several amicus briefs opposing the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a statute which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman and denies a wide range of federal benefits to same-sex couples.