Berkeley Students, Teachers and Parents Push Back

by Leon Kunstenaar

Thu, May 9, 2024 4:48PM

Rally at Berkeley's Old City Hall sends message that Berkeley School System will not succumb to McCarthy style intimidation

original image (1833x1400)

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(Berkeley, May 8) - The rally in front of Berkeley Old City Hall, now a historic site, began with teachers blasting attempts to stifle teaching about Palestine. Students and parents, many of them Jewish, spoke in solidarity against those from President Biden on down, who try to equate criticism of Israel's crimes against humanity with antisemitism.

After speeches, poetry and an Arab dance performance, the whole crowd danced together illustrating their unity and determination not to be cowed.

From Berkeley Families for Collective Liberation:

Berkeley Families for Collective Liberation came together to defend our schools. In October, a handful of pro-Israel parents started harassing and complaining about Berkeley K-12 teachers for teaching about Palestine; and harassing and intimidating Berkeley students for calling for ceasefire and an end to occupation of Palestine. Experienced, long-time teachers have been doxxed, placed on administrative leave, and subject to lawsuits for supporting teaching about Palestine or for their activism outside of their jobs. Students as young as 8 have been surveilled with drones and accused of “antisemitism” for writing “stop bombing babies” on an elementary school’s years old no hate bulletin board.

Pro-Israel parents, some of whom are dual citizens, falsely conflate any education about the lived experiences of Palestinians and anti-war advocacy with antisemitism. They primarily target teachers of color and Jewish teachers in Berkeley, who’ve been champions of anti-racism — nurturing, safeguarding, and empowering Brown and Black identity and white allyship— for years.

They’ve found allies in Republican members of the congressional committee on education, who’ve expanded their McCarthy-style witch-hunt to progressive and diverse K-12 school districts, including Berkeley. The education leaders they target are all Black and Brown educators.

Our children are living in an upside-down world where elected officials deny the genocide of the Palestinian people, continue to send billions of dollars worth genocidal weaponry to Israel, while cutting our schools budgets, then blame and punish the students and teachers who call out what is happening.

There is also an organized effort to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and would criminalize the Free Palestine movement. The Department of Ed thwarted it. And many school districts have been thwarting it for years. But Israel lobby groups are resilient, well-funded and organized, they keep trying to inject that definition, which is the basis of the extreme state clampdown we’ve seen in Germany, any way they can. This week, they made progress with the Republican-led Congress. And next week these same Republican representatives will put our Superintendent, who is well loved by Berkeley teachers and students and has a stellar career in anti-racist education, on trial for peaceful anti-war protests led by our children, some as young as 11.

Israel wants to control education in the U.S. and erase Palestinian American voices
Besides attacking our students' right to protest and right to learn, there is an organized attack on our Ethnic Studies program. Ethnic Studies is about telling the truth about historically marginalized communities of color. It's about questioning structural racism, power dynamics, and patterns in history. Berkeley High became one of the first schools in the nation to require a semester of Ethnic Studies in 1990. Decades later, California followed and specifically mandated that Ethnic Studies be tailored to the school district’s demographics. After Spanish, Arabic is the most spoken language in our district. For Berkeley that means teaching about Arab American histories including the lived experiences of our Palestinian-American students. In the words of our 6th grader Yasmine Nassar, “Israel can wipe away girls like me, but they can’t wipe away their story. It lives on in me.” For years, pro-Israel interest groups have been attacking Palestinian-American and Arab American students and their right to learn their histories in Berkeley and the larger Bay Area. They’ve been pushing for a revisionist version of Ethnic Studies that erases Palestinian voices.

Israel weaponizes Jewish safety to fund war & to silence anti-war protests For decades, the Israeli state has justified its violent US -funded clampdown of Palestinian protests in Israel, West Bank, and Gaza, under the banner of Jewish safety. Now some Berkeley parents backed by pro-Israel interest groups are trying to bring the same level of control Israel exerts in education and protest there to American K-12 education and higher learning, under the guise of Jewish safety. But our students, including our Jewish students, aren’t having it. They want to learn about the occupation, their government’s complicity in it, and they want to exercise their constitutional right to protest.

Berkeley’s Jewish students
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel, who has over 20 years of experience as an educator in the Bay Area, and holds a BA and MA in Education from UC Berkeley, has been asked to testify before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on antisemitism in K-12 schools. In a press release, her office said, “Although she did not seek this invitation, she has accepted and will be in our nation’s capital on May 8 at 7:15 A.M. PDT to testify on behalf of our district."

In response, Berkeley Jewish Parents said in a media statement, ”These congressional hearings are not about Jewish students’ well-being. This is part of the MAGA Republican war on education that is restricting public school students’ right to learn. We reject these right-wing attacks on our families. We stand firmly together, as Jews, with other minority communities and all of our educators against all forms of hate. Jewish children are safe and thriving in Berkeley’s diverse schools. As Jewish Berkeley parents, we reject the notion that there is rampant antisemitism in our schools; it is simply not true. A handful of parents have painted a false picture of our city in the national media, fueling the national right-wing attack on education."

Many Jewish families in Berkeley are horrified by the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing genocide in Gaza which has killed more than 17,000 children, wiped out all universities and robbed children of school for a whole year. Jewish Voices for Peace, which now has 700,000 members across the country, was founded in Berkeley. Many American Jews don’t believe Israel is significant to their Jewish identity, and this number is even higher for anyone 24 and under, many of whom also support BDS - Boycott and Divestment from Israel. Berkeley’s students — including our Jewish students — believe Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom are intertwined.

Berkeley’s legacy of anti-racism education and protest
We stand against dangerous manufactured distractions which erase the political beliefs of our anti-war Jewish families, deny the genocide of the Palestinain people, dehumanize and erase the civil rights of our Palestinian and Arab families, while draining our schools of energy and resources that all our kids need. Our students see through the lies and distractions. Berkeley was the first school district to desegregate in 1968 and home to the first and only high school to establish an African American studies department. Our students have led walkouts and protests for divestment in the South African apartheid, and recently they've protested for DACA students, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ rights. We know racism when we see it. And we call it out. Every classroom in our district has a pride flag and a Black Lives Matter flag.

The attack on Liberated Ethnic Studies & teaching Palestine
To support teachers, Berkeley Unified School District has contracted with Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) as one curriculum collaborator. LESMCC was thoroughly vetted by the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee and was specifically recommended because of their professionalism and high quality of their sample curriculums. The curriculum writing work is led by Berkeley educators. The six pilot units reflect the rich diversity of our Berkeley communities, including our Arab American community. Additionally, some Berkeley Unified educators chose to write and teach an opt-in lesson set about Palestine and Israel in the 23/24 school year. This opt-in lesson set adheres to School Board Policy and the right of academic freedom for Berkeley teachers. This was a lesson set made available to history, government, and ethnic studies educators at Berkeley High. Because of the inclusion of Palestine and as part of larger efforts to erase Palestinian history and silence criticism of Israel, the LESMCC contract & Ethnic Studies teachers are under attack from a small group of parents.

Here are clips from accurate media coverage of what’s happening in Berkeley including videos from Berkeley school board meetings that have cumulatively gained millions of views. Additionally, we can connect you with Palestinian, Arab, Jewish, Muslim parents, teachers and students for comment.

1. The LA Times, Berkeley schools chief will testify at congressional hearing over antisemitism charges, by Jaweed Kaleem, April 15, 2024 “The Berkeley Unified School District Jewish Parents for Collective Liberation, which includes about 60 parents, said Monday that the May hearing is ‘part of the MAGA Republican war on education.’”

2. The Electronic Intifada, Teachers, parents fight Israel lobby smears against Berkeley schools, by Nora Barrows-Friedman, April 10, 2024 “... there are other teachers who have just been experiencing a lot of email harassment and feeling very attacked, and so when these parents have been filing these complaints, the district has been responding. And so when the ADL complaint says the district is ignoring it, that's totally not true,” - Christina Harb, Palestinian-American Berkeley Unified School District Teacher

3. Berkeleyside, Berkeley students, teachers say civil rights complaint conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel, by Ally Markovich, March 8, 2024 “It’s the framing of these kinds of incidents in the complaint as antisemitic that generated the most criticism from the audience at the board meeting. They argue these incidents are within the bounds of free speech and their framing is designed to censor teachers on the subject of Palestine.”

4. Medium, Beloved Berkeley Teachers Under Attack Over Palestine, by Negeene Mosaed, March 21, 2024 “‘I feel like that’s the biggest danger, which would then cement as antisemitic any discussion of Palestinian history and experience. This would be essentially a racist policy against Palestinians in our educational curriculum, silencing and erasing Palestinian history.’ Remember this — because this is what could happen.” Berkeley Unified School District Teacher

5. Flipside, Modern Day McCarthyism in Berkeley, by Becky Villagrán, January 18, 2024 “In all my time at Berkeley High, I have never felt afraid to teach history until now. As a teacher, it’s terrorizing to be labeled as a hateful person. As a Jewish person, it’s awful to be labeled as an anti-Semite. And as a community member at Berkeley High, I look to my school and community leaders to give guidance.” - Berkeley Unified School District Teacher

VIDEOS by Berkeley Families for Collective Liberation Instagram