The rally was called by Philly Educators for Palestine, which was organized over the last few months after the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) failed to protect students and staff advocating for education about Palestine and for an end to [the] genocide in Gaza. A flash point came in February when the SDP decided to remove a student video podcast about Palestinian art that was part of a broader project on how Indigenous people use art as an act of resistance to oppression.

After the podcast was shared at an assembly in Northeast High School, a teacher who opposed the project shared photos of the students online, exposing them to doxing and other threats. Keziah Ridgeway, the teacher who developed the broader project about art and Indigenous peoples, has also received threats.

About 100 activists were able to crowd into the closed-door monthly Board of Education meeting to demand that the board and Superintendent Tony Watlington address their concerns that the district censored the student project.

Speaking at the meeting, Hazel Heiko, a student at Northeast High School student, told the board: “You cannot continue to not allow us to speak about genocide. We see the reality on our phones. All of us have access to it. And that does not stop even though you are not allowing us to talk about it in school.

Heiko concluded: “We will not always be in school. We will not always be young. We need to learn now when we have the opportunity to talk about uncomfortable things.” (Chalkbeat Philadelphia, May 30)

Even though the Board restricted admission to the meeting, demonstrators gathered outside the room and in a spill-over space kept up steady chants in support of Palestine throughout the meeting.