Ohio Teens Overcome Censorship of Interfaith Palestine Event

After administrators tried to block their interfaith event on Palestine earlier this year, students at a private school in Ohio turned to their community—and to Palestine Legal—for  help in getting their voices heard.

Instead of allowing a unilateral decision from administrators to silence them, students in the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Maumee Valley Country Day School (MVCDS) worked with other students, alumni and organizations such as American Muslims for Palestine and the Council on American-Islamic Relations to fight back against the cancelation. The event was ultimately rescheduled at Monroe Street United Methodist Church in January.

“Despite the challenges we faced while planning this event, this experience was just a small glimpse into the real world experience of advocating for Palestine today,” said the co-presidents of the MVCDS Muslim Students Association. “Although there were attempts to censor and intimidate us into silence, we were able to pull through with the support we received from the community. Overall, this experience only showed us the importance of perseverance in our fight.” 

"We want high school students to know: you have a right to organize for Palestine and we are here to support you if anyone tries to stand in your way,” said Amal Thabateh, Palestine Legal’s Michael Ratner Justice Fellow.

Interfaith dialogue abruptly canceled

The event, “Palestine: The Cradle of Faiths,” featured speakers from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in an effort to foster interfaith dialogue about Palestine within the school. The high school students worked with the MSA’s faculty advisor to organize dinner for the event, locate speakers to participate in the discussion and create flyers, which the school shared on their website. 

The MSA took all the necessary steps and received all the appropriate signatures required for club events. 

One week before the event was scheduled to occur, top school administrators called the MSA student organizers into a meeting in which they expressed concerns about one of the speakers—a rabbi—for his anti-Zionist views. The administrators also falsely claimed that the students did not follow all of the required guidelines for event planning as specified in the student handbook.

After weeks of collaborative and transparent organizing by MSA students, the school’s administration unilaterally moved to cancel the event and deleted the previously posted flyer. The school announced the abrupt cancellation in a vague email to parents, falsely claiming that neither the scheduled speakers nor event flyers were “vetted following standard MVCDS approval protocol.”

The community pushes back 

After the cancellation, many community members expressed their outrage to MVCDS administrators. Alumni of MVCDS drafted and circulated an open letter, and the United Muslim Association of Toledo wrote to the school and school board, urging the school to reconsider the cancellation. The school refused to listen. 

Alumni said in their open letter that there is a long history at MVCDS of silencing Palestinian voices and discourse around Palestine, including a refusal by administrators for over seven years to add a Palestinian flag to the international hallway despite numerous Palestinian students attending and graduating from MVCDS. 

The MSA student organizers then attempted to secure a space for the event at the University of Toledo. After the students received confirmation of the venue, the University abruptly canceled the event, using the exact same language as the Maumee Valley Country Day School for their reasoning. 

But despite the administrative hurdles and censorship, the students persisted and secured a venue at Monroe Street United Methodist Church, a local church in Toledo. The event was a success with great turnout, especially considering the multiple location changes.

Learn More:

Recent years have witnessed a troubling trend of censorship of Palestinian voices at K-12 schools across the country. 

Last fall, a Palestinian sixth grader at a public school in California was removed from class by a counselor and told that a T-shirt bearing the words “Palestine” (in Arabic) and “Free Palestine” promoted violence and made other students feel unsafe. The district eventually apologized and conducted professional development around Palestinian cultural sensitivity and recommitted to developing an ethnic studies curriculum that includes the history and experiences of Palestinians.

An Illinois high school student of Palestinian descent was similarly censored in the fall when she attempted to raise awareness about the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. School administrators refused to approve a poster containing statistics about children’s mental health and lack of clean water. On another occasion, the student was scrutinized for her club’s poster advertising Palestinian culture and was restricted in the ways she was allowed to put up the posters.

Read more in our 2018, 2019, and 2021 reports.