Public school districts that aligned themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement during the social-justice uprising of 2020 continue to support the cause even as its leaders respond to the brutal Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians by blaming the Jewish state.
One Vermont school district refused to remove BLM flags from classrooms last month after parents pointed out that the banners could well be interpreted as antisemitic given the statements put out by various BLM organizations in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror attack that claimed the lives of 1,400 Israelis.
Families asked the Essex Westford School District school board to remove the flags after BLM at School’s October 17 statement that called the “unfolding loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives” a “direct result of decades of Israeli settler colonialism, land dispossession, occupation, blockade, apartheid, and attempted genocide of millions of Palestinians.”
“We demand as taxpayers of the Essex Westford School District that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags be removed from flagpoles of all District schools,” read the letter, obtained by Parents Defending Education. “BLM has shown itself to be anti-American and anti-Semitic. All ‘white-privilege’ lives, as well as the lives of any BIPOC persons who oppose BLM, are of no value to BLM. There has never been any justification for flying the BLM flag.”
Essex’s board voted unanimously in August 2020 to fly the BLM flag at each of its schools for the 2020-21 school year — as did many other districts nationwide, to stand in solidarity with black students after George Floyd’s death. The Essex school board decided in 2021 to keep BLM flags up permanently; a policy the board now revisits annually.
Board member Robert Carpenter offered community members “clarity” on the situation.
“The flags are not an endorsement of the BLM organization,” Carpenter said in response to the letter. “Following our policy, students brought forward a request to fly a flag with the statement ‘Black Lives Matter’ in order to show support for BIPOC students in our district and community. I understand your concern noted in your email and hopefully, this should alleviate that concern over the association with the BLM Organization.”
As an organization, BLM has long espoused anti-Israel rhetoric. BLM Grassroots said in October that they also stand “in solidarity with our Palestinian family who are currently resisting 57 years of settler colonialism and apartheid.”
BLM Chicago, meanwhile, posted an image of a Hamas paraglider on Instagram with the caption “I Stand With Palestine” shortly after paragliders massacred hundreds of Israelis at a music festival. They later deleted the post and apologized.
BLM Global Network Foundation co-founder Patrisse Cullors said in 2015 at Harvard Law School that, “Palestine is our generation’s South Africa.”
“If we don’t step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that’s called Israel, we’re doomed,” Cullors added.
Bold doesn’t exactly describe BLM’s anti-Israel stance, PDE’s senior advisor Michele Exner said. A better way to characterize Cullors’s brash support for “Palestinian liberation” would be “hateful, horrific, and flat-out antisemitic,” Exner said.
“Considering this was said by one of the co-founders, BLM should have never been given legitimacy,” Exner added.
Essex isn’t the only school district to continue its endorsement of BLM. In October, PDE found, Milwaukee Public Schools in Wisconsin promoted a “contest to design the MPS 2023-24 Black Lives Matter at School T-shirt.” The Mountain View-Los Altos Unified High School District in California also asked students last month to design a social media-post that expressed support for a social movement. BLM was one of the nine suggested social movements.
Following George Floyd’s death in 2020, many school districts, student clubs, and teacher’s unions announced their unwavering support of BLM. A branch of the organization’s national movement, BLM at School was started in 2016 by thousands of teachers in Washington who decided to bring BLM’s message to campus with t-shirts that read, “Black Lives Matter: We Stand Together.” Both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are ardent supporters of BLM at School and although NEA and AFT released statements condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack, neither have publicly renounced BLM.
Exner said that she doesn’t anticipate unions or school districts to dial back their support for the organization, even in light of its pro-Hamas sympathies.
“BLM has long been exposed as a Marxist organization, but their decision to sympathize with terrorists after innocent people were slaughtered should remove all doubt. This organization is toxic and should not be allowed to collaborate with any school in America,” she said. “There is no sign they plan to curtail their involvement in America’s schools, so parents should not be afraid to demand BLM be barred from their children’s classrooms. BLM’s mission is to divide and create hate. At Parents Defending Education, we will continue to expose any school who decides to open their doors to this antisemitic organization.”
PDE has followed BLM’s school movement for years — detailing “Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action” and “Black Lives Matter Week of Action,” nationwide BLM initiatives. PDE has tracked multiple instances in which BLM’s politics have infiltrated classrooms: At Brent Elementary School in Washington, D.C., where students learned BLM’s 13 guiding principles in March 2023; At Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland, where students participated in a BLM-sponsored “From Student to Activist” event; At Ferndale Public Schools in Michigan, where students were assigned to work on “BLM Policy Research.”
“BLM is an overtly political organization that has, since its inception, been overtly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. They recently issued public statements that blamed Israel for the massacre on October 7th and did not condemn Hamas for the attack,” Erika Sanzi, PDE’s director of outreach said. “Those flags should have come down on October 8th. There are plenty of organizations with flags that the district has not been willing to fly on its campuses while BLM has been afforded special treatment — not only is this evidence of viewpoint discrimination but it creates a hostile environment for Jewish students and families.”