Portland teachers union removes some Palestine advocacy material after backlash

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — The Portland Association of Teachers has taken some of its pro-Palestine advocacy materials off of its website following public backlash to the materials.

The teachers union had published a guide with tips on how to integrate information on what it calls a genocide in Gaza, into the classroom.

The union website also included resources about teaching Palestine, including lessons by grade level.

We asked PAT President Angela Bonilla about why they took curricular materials off their website.

“There were these curricular materials that we have taken down from our website after checking in with the committee and recognizing that some of these materials weren’t fully reviewed,” said Bonilla.

Bonilla says the guide they still have published is not meant to marginalize any community but to simply make teachers aware of their legal rights in the classroom.

“We’ve had several educators report censorship situations where they’ve had administrators at some point tell them not to wear certain clothing or pins,” said Bonilla. “I would say that this guide came from educators who came together to prepare. This guide from people who are both Jewish Israeli Kavanah members, members who don’t identify as either.”

The content of this guide makes a Jewish teacher over at Robert Gray Elementary, David Goldstein, emotional.

“It’s devastating, really,” said Goldstein. “The ‘Know Your Rights’ guide, along with the curriculum, the “Teach Palestine” curriculum, which reads as a very one-sided curriculum that presents a very distorted set of facts and partial truths and demonizes and vilifies Jewish people.”

Among many suggestions, the guide says to remind students, when asked, that the conflict in the Middle East is not due to a longstanding hostility between a Jewish and Arab or Muslim people, but that it’s Palestine’s political struggle for self-determination against colonial and apartheid rule.

Suggestions like this are taking a toll on Portland Public Schools’ parent and rabbi, David Kosak.

“I’m worried and concerned right?” said Kosak.

His concern is that inaccurate statements about the conflict could lead to increased demonization of Jewish students in school.

“The first ethical duty of a teacher is to make sure their students feel safe, because students who don’t feel safe learn less effectively,” said Kosak.