Editor’s note: The last names of students quoted in this article have been withheld for their safety.
More than 300 students walked out of school and protested at the Portland Public Schools, or PPS, district office on March 15. They were taking action to demand education about Palestine, and that PPS cut ties with companies complicit in the Israeli occupation and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
Since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 31,000 people in Gaza, including over 13,000 children. The scale of death and destruction has sparked outrage globally and in the local community.
Led by PPS Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), students and allies rallied and gave speeches about the colonial history of Palestine and the lived experiences of Palestinian and Jewish students.
The event was supported by a number of organizations including Oregon Educators for Palestine, Mothers For a Ceasefire, Democratic Socialists of America Portland and Jewish Voice for Peace Portland.
Student demands, frustrations
PPS SJP had three specific demands of the PPS Board of Education, conveyed in a letter. First, implement comprehensive education about settler colonialism and Palestine for all grade levels. Second, release a statement openly condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Third, cut all ties with companies complicit in the Israeli occupation.
“We're here specifically to highlight those three demands, but also as a student group, as students for peace, and as Students for Justice in Palestine, to raise awareness about what's going on in Palestine and support the over 30,000 innocent Palestinians that have been murdered by the IDF,” Sarah, a PPS student and organizer of the event, said.
“It is not complicated that it is wrong to kill more than 12,000 children. I do not think it should be controversial to advocate for peace, justice, and equality.”
— Suzanna Kassouf,
PPS teacher
In their letter, PPS SJP expressed frustration at the school board’s choice to “perpetuate ignorance” following over 6,000 letters from the community that were critical of PPS’ response to the crisis.
“They're the ones that have the power and they're the ones that are choosing to do nothing about this,” Sarah said.
The demand for a statement from PPS is connected to a previous PPS statement given on Oct. 11 that failed to mention the oppression of Palestinians. Since then, PPS has not commented on the Israeli assault.
Jihad Qutub, a Palestinian parent to students in the district, as well as a part-time football coach with PPS, remembers getting the announcement.
“Having been a Palestinian student within that same school district and understanding the way in which they treat and have treated Arab people in the past, Portland Public Schools… this is par for the course for them,” Qutub said.
While the students called for PPS to refuse contracts with any company on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement list, their primary target was PPS’ contract with SHI International. SHI is a partner of HP, one of BDS’ main targets given their role in providing Israel with surveillance technology to monitor Palestinians.
Educational challenges
Holding signs that said “Teach Truth” and “Educate, Speak Out, Cut Ties,” students expressed their desire to learn about Palestine, echoing the demands of PPS SJP.
Calliope, a Jewish student and organizer of the event, noted the need for better education on current events because of the impact they have on the community.
“I’d like to see PPS implement a curriculum that has been curated in order to teach students about this genocide and this war,” Calliope told Street Roots. “Like one of the speakers said, it’s complicated, but we do complicated stuff in school all the time.”
In her efforts to provide education about Israel and Palestine, Suzanna Kassouf, a PPS teacher, has faced pushback from pro-Israel community members, she said.
“Yesterday, my administrators told me that PPS legal contacted them and said I needed to take my ceasefire posters down because it was ‘political speech,’” Kassouf said. “I refused, asking if I should take down my Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ+ equality posters. A ceasefire is just a call for peace — to stop bombing children. If we can’t endorse that as a school community, what does that say about us?”
The following day, she was forced to take her posters down. PPS’ guidelines for political speech state, “language that supports our values of racial equity and social justice are not political speech,” referencing Black Lives Matter as an example. Below her ceasefire poster, Kassouf had a sign that said “Release the hostages. Free the prisoners,” but she was not asked to remove it.
Bob Horenstein, director of community relations for the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, confirms there were a number of objections from Jewish community members surrounding Kassouf’s teaching. In particular, some took issue with posters that Kassouf’s class had created and hung up in the hallway.
“When you look at (the posters), they all seem to be denigrating Zionism and distorting the history of the conflict,” Horenstein said. “Teachers are supposed to encourage objective thinking and have inclusive dialogue over challenging issues. That's not what's happening.”
Horenstein went on to claim that Zionism is part of the religious and cultural identity of many Jews, so disparaging it crosses a line into anti-Semitism.
According to Kassouf, she provided students with a balanced view through a lesson that was created and co-taught by Bill Bigelow, the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and co-director of the Zinn Education Project. Each student was tasked to represent one of 17 real people who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s and were affected by Zionism in some way. The roles had a range of perspectives — some were supporters of Zionism, others not. Eventually, these student posters were also taken down.
Horenstein voiced concerns about Kassouf’s political views as expressed on social media and said the posters seemed “very much like indoctrination.”
Kassouf on the other hand argued they showcased diverse viewpoints, letting students come to their own conclusions. She also noted some aspects of the issues between Palestine and Israel are complicated, such as brokering a peace plan, but other things are quite simple.
“It is not complicated that it is wrong to kill more than 12,000 children,” she said in a speech at Friday’s rally. “I do not think it should be controversial to advocate for peace, justice, and equality.”
In her classroom, Kassouf chose to provide education about Palestine for a number of reasons.
“Whether or not I teach about it, kids are getting educated about it,” she said. “Do we want them to be educated just on social media? Because social media does not do a great job of telling the whole story and also really does not do a good job of reminding us all that every life is precious.”
Horenstein said some people took issue with the way in which teachers participated in the protest. Specifically, he referred to teachers holding signs accusing Israel of genocide and claimed that dozens of parents felt their kids were not safe in PPS. He also suggested that teachers helped organize the protest.
Kassouf denied involvement in organizing. She claims she was asked to speak, which led to her reviewing the students’ planned chants to ensure they aligned with her values.
Kassouf also indicated that she’d helped organize student-led climate protests in the past, but no issues arose. Many supporters of the walkout felt the pushback was unusual in the context of efforts to improve education on race, diversity and Indigenous communities.
“We have such a progressive community that this seems to be kind of the only issue that we disagree on,” Kassouf said. “I just don’t want to continue to be a target for teaching peace.”
Jewish and Palestinian students
The rally featured a number of speakers from different backgrounds, including both Jews and Palestinians, many of whom have struggled with rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia since October. In a number of the rally’s speeches, students made a clear distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel.
“You can’t tell me I hate Jews for wanting peace,” Hana, a Palestinian student and organizer of the event, said. “All everybody wants is peace. ‘Stop killing children’ is not a controversial statement.”
Jewish students also weighed in with frustration, saying they feel Israel does not represent them.
“You continually violate and oppress the Palestinian people while simultaneously endangering your own,” a Jewish student said in reference to the Israeli government. “You do not represent the peaceful Jews running from persecution to settle anew, you reflect the oppressor they were running from.”
The intensity around Palestine and Israel has resulted in an environment where many students don’t feel safe. Hana noted in her speech that she feels scared to wear her keffiyeh, a scarf symbolizing solidarity with Palestine, but she chooses to anyway.
“I imagine there is someone like me in Gaza right now,” Hana said. “She has big dreams. She wants to make a difference in the world. She would do way more than I ever could, but our circumstances are so different. While I’m standing here in peace, she dies in pieces.”
These fears were not solely amongst students, however. Parents were concerned for their children’s safety, especially regarding the expression of their beliefs.
“After October 7th, what really struck me was I, in a sense, became very protective,” Qutub said. “I was afraid of having my kids really speak out too loudly.”
Hana and others claimed that PPS has not fostered an environment where they could safely express their views, feeling that even teachers have been censored in efforts to speak out about genocide.
Academic censorship
The discussion of censorship around Palestine has reached a national scale, with the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania resigning after controversial congressional hearings about anti-Semitism in higher education.
A poll from the University of Maryland and George Washington University found that 82% of scholars felt the need to self-censor when discussing Israeli-Palestinian issues. Of note, 81% said they felt the greatest need to self-censor when criticizing Israel, compared to 11% when criticizing Palestinians.
“There are many, many people who are part of the educators and faculty within Portland Public Schools who feel this exact way, who are being quieted with the threats of their jobs,” Qutub said. “And this is coming after a strike in which Portland Public Schools has shown that they're willing to do very harsh things to get the things that they want.”
Pressure from the pro-Israel community made Kassouf feel particularly nervous about being interviewed.
“I’m doing okay, but the organized opposition to me and my teaching has just begun and I don’t know what that’s going to mean for me as everything unfolds,” Kassouf said. “I think we can’t let our fear make us self-censor. That’s the chilling effect that they want, but it’s our responsibility as educators to teach the truth.”
With teachers feeling the heat, students and organizations like PPS SJP have felt the need to pick up the slack in advocating for a ceasefire, but some worry this could put kids at risk.
“We've seen in the past when the public school systems do not support and protect individuals who are most vulnerable in these situations, harm comes their way,” Qutub said.
Despite fears and concerns of being written off as “just children,” the students proudly took to the streets and made their voices heard.
“We're here and we're strong and we're passionate,” Sarah said. “And we're not gonna stop until PPS decides to do something about it and meet our demands… We have been organizing with students across the district and it shows me the power that we have as students and as children, and the voice that we have. It gives me hope for the future. It gives me hope that we as a society can do something and we are going to make change.”
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