On May 17, 2025, over 120 teacher unions, students, and community members rallied outside SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, protesting proposed federal education funding cuts. The rally highlighted deep concerns about the impact on students' access to resources and food in schools. Key voices, like teacher Michael Rebne, emphasized the importance of truth in education, particularly regarding rising Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other forms of discrimination. Educators are increasingly facing pressure to conform to political narratives amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with organizations like Palestine Legal reporting a sharp increase in legal aid requests from educators advocating for honest discourse in classrooms.
Our students demand to learn the truth even if a small group of powerful, mostly wealthy, white adults is threatened by that, insisted Michael Rebne, a teacher at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City. At this moment we are seeing a rise in both Islamophobia and antisemitism stoked by the same right-wing forces that seek to further marginalize LGBTQIA+ students and the voices of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and all people of color.
We've had an exponential surge in requests for legal help. It has been like nothing we've seen before. In just the month of October 2023, the organization responded to nearly two hundred requests, showing the urgent need for protection of free speech rights.
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