Protect Solidarity Advocates for Palestine! Stop the Censorship of Solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian People!
In early May of this year, five out of seven Beaverton School District Board members voted to hire an outside, third-party investigator to look into fellow Board member Dr. Tammy Carpenter’s personal social media. The retaliatory investigation was prompted by Dr. Carpenter sharing a post that calls out the ongoing genocide in Gaza by recognizing the Palestinian people who have been experiencing 77 years of ethnic cleansing, displacement, colonization, and apartheid on the 77th commemoration of Al-Nakba.
As an organization made up of and led by immigrants and refugees, we stand with Dr. Tammy Carpenter, who has been unwavering in her solidarity with the Palestinian people. Palestinians are one of the largest refugee groups who have been displaced, dispossessed, and forcibly expelled from their homelands. The story of Palestinians‘ struggle shares the same root causes of immigrants and refugees who have been forcibly displaced from their homelands due to United States-backed foreign policies, such as those from the Congo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Burma, Mexico, Venezuela, and beyond.
In the same day that Beaverton School Board members chose to retaliate against their fellow member for her solidarity with Palestinians, at least 70 Palestinians were killed by Israeli Occupation forces while trying to obtain food withheld behind the tanks and arms provided by the United States, funded by our public resources. Within the United States, international students are being threatened with deportation for participating in student activism. Immigrant leaders are being held in ICE Detention Centers for their organizing, ranging from solidarity work with Palestine to labor organizing in their workplaces. This is one and the same playbook our oppressors utilize.
The choice of the board to utilize school district funds in a way that aligns with a national right-wing smear campaign to silence and disappear immigrants, refugees, and solidarity allies for their solidarity with Palestine is dangerous for everyone. Dr. Tammy Carpenter should not be punished for her moral clarity, solidarity with Palestinians, and genuine advocacy for immigrants and refugees. We demand the retaliatory investigation be dropped against Dr. Tammy Carpenter for her solidarity against genocide. We invite the rest of the Beaverton School District Board members to locate the courage to do the same.
Email the Beaverton School District board members here:
Susan Greenberg: susan_greenberg@beaverton.k12.or.us
Dr. Karen Pérez: karen_perez@beaverton.k12.or.us
Dr. Melissa Potter: melissa_potter@beaverton.k12.or.us
Sunita Garg: Sunita_Garg@beaverton.k12.or.us
Justice Rajee:justice_rajee@beaverton.k12.or.us
