Defending Student Voices
CAIR-Chicago Responds to Stevenson High School’s Palestinian Booth Controversy
Here are the facts:
What happened?
Stevenson High School hosted a World Fair on the weekend of January 25-26, 2025.
The Palestine and Israel booths were part of the event.
The fair was open to the public.
2. What sparked the backlash?
The Palestine booth displayed a watermelon map, a cultural symbol of Palestinian identity.
Some Zionist attendees claimed it was a erasure and a call for genocide against Israel with the slogan "From the River to the Sea."
3. How did the school react?
The school requested the map be covered, which was done using an image of a large slice of watermelon.
The booth remained open and was not shut down.
The administration was supportive of students.
4. What about the Israel booth?
The Israel booth had references to hostages despite this being a non-political cultural fair.
Muslim students and parents requested its removal.
The reference was not removed.
5. Harassment at the fair
An outside adult harassed Muslim girls at the Palestine booth.
He was escorted out by security.
Additional security was provided to protect students at the Palestine booth.
6. Zionist backlash continues
Online campaigns by the Chicago Jewish Alliance (CJA), target the school administration, demanding investigations and penalties.
Parent and community Facebook groups are banning pro-Palestine voices.
Public comments were heard at Feb. 10th’s D125 Board of Education meeting.
We applaud the parents, students, JVP allies, and all who packed the room to speak truth to power, hear from them below:
Learn more about the CJA and their bully tactics below
CAIR-Chicago spoke at the Stevenson High School Board of Education Meeting for District 125 on the evening of Feb. 10th, 2025.
The students’ Palestine booth:
A parent’s eyewitness testimony on the aggressive adult harassing students
Our first letter to District 125 Administration (sent Jan 28, 2025)
Dear Mr. Gobble, Mr. Latka, Mr. Goergen, Ms. Neault et al,
My name is Ahmed Rehab, I am the Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago (www.cairchicago.org), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in Illinois, CAIR is the largest nationwide with 35 chapters.
I am contacting you on behalf of my organization whose mission is to "defend civil rights, fight bigotry, and promote tolerance," and on behalf of several Muslim parents at Stevenson who contacted me and apprised me of the situation that unfolded over the weekend at the school World Fair.
Let me start by saying that I presume confidence in your institution and its leadership. Earning a reputation as one of the best schools in Illinois and nationally is no easy feat that cannot be attained except by a deep commitment to values, processes, and most of all to your students.
I have done my own due diligence on what transpired and what is transpiring and wish to share with you our position as well as bring some important matters to your attention.
I interviewed several parents about the ordeal, and here are the facts as I have them, please feel to correct any errors:
The Palestine and Israel booths were part of World Fair day which took place over the weekend.
There was a complaint that the Watermelon map displayed at the Palestine booth was offensive to some people.
The school did request removal of the map, which was covered by a slice of watermelon.
The Israel booth had references to hostages despite this being a non-political cultural fair. The reference was not removed.
An adult from the Israel booth harassed the girls at the Palestine booth. He was escorted out and security was afforded to the students at the Palestine booth thereafter.
The fair has since ended, but there is now an external effort to rally online community members to come after the school administration, presumably demanding an investigation, apology, penalties, etc., similar to the attempts at Harvard and Columbia last year.
Parent and community FB groups which are otherwise open to all community members are banning parents (and others) who comment in favor of the Palestine booth students.
Please consider the following points:
First, It is important that whatever standards and procedures the school applies, that they are applied equally and equitably to all groups.
Second, I want to emphasize that our public schools should be safe zones for our students and educators to deal with issues internally and not a circus for public fiasco at the probing of external groups. Unlike universities, our schools serve our minors and so this point cannot be overstated.
Third, in such sacred learning spaces, it is important all students understand that their viewpoint is not the only one that exists, not the only one that deserves respect, and not the only one that enjoys the right to be expressed. That is an important lifelong lesson that starts early, particularly in healthy democracies. As such, differences of viewpoints when they arise, which is a question of when not if, can only be negotiated through debate and persuasion, if at all, not by shutting them down. The alternative is to teach that those with conceivably more power have the right to silence those with conceivably less power. That brings us to the next point.
Fourth, the external campaign targeting Stevenson and district 125 is orchestrated by what we would describe as a "bully platform." This newly minted group, created by 5 men last year, goes by the name of "Chicago Jewish Alliance" (CJA) and exists solely for the expressed purpose of trying to intimidate public institutions into erasing or muffling Palestinian voices and narratives. Their methodology is two-fold: 1) accuse those who hold different views/beliefs of antisemitism and 2) accuse them of having "ties" to terrorism using innocuous qualifiers like "indirect" and "questionable" that attempt to soften the bold-faced lie. Their social media is filled with illegal aggressive tactics including defamation and doxing of educators and students whom they target. They attempt to rally users on social media to sign-on to template letters in order to flood targeted public institutions and feign the impression of public uproar.
Examples of their actions to date:
The targeting of a 15-year old Christian Palestinian girl at Glenbrook North for a line in her yearbook they took issue with, causing a public stir that caused her and her family undue distress (multiple school board hearings, and a media circus).
The targeting of at least 3 public libraries demanding the shutting down of a film exploring American-Jewish attitudes towards the conflict (made by Israeli filmmakers) and sponsored by local Jewish organizations,because they disagreed with its content. As a result of the external flood of pressure, two of the libraries while not cancelling the showings, stipulated that the local sponsoring Jewish organizations hire extra private security due to the incessant emailed threats which at the end proved cost prohibitive.
The targeting of the only Palestinian-American department chair at District 207 accusing her of antisemitism and ties to terrorism on the claim that she refused to teach the novel "Night" and the Holocaust, which turned out to be a lie. The educator offered multiple tracks in the Genocide studies section including "Night"/Holocaust. They altered their accusation to claiming she was antisemitic for not "exclusively" teaching "Night" and the Holocaust. CJA doxed her publicly and rallied social media against her.
In this case, they are targeting Stevenson/District 125 via the same tactics: they have put out a template email and shared it on social media to solicit users to hit send on the email template to feign popular outrage to bend the educators to their demands which invariably include erasing/muffling Palestinian voices/narratives as with all their hitjobs to date.
Fifth, Palestinians and Israelis, and their respective supporters, most obviously disagree on narratives. But that seems not so obvious to this group. They will argue their beliefs/positions to you. It is not in me to counterargue, as again, it is obvious that there are two sides to a conflict. It is for me to say that while one side has a right to their beliefs, so does the other. As clearly that is not so obvious to anti-freedom bully platforms, I trust it is to our top educators. And so, in essence, as a civil rights organization, I write to urge you to do two things: uphold the rights to freedom of belief and non-violent expression of all your students and educators in a safe and non-threatening environment; and protect them from internal and external bullying and intimidation campaigns.
(P.S. If we were to get into argument and counterargument, I'd just say that our community cannot help but feel gaslit at accusations of "calling for genocide against Israel" at a time in which the UN, Amnesty International and Israeli genocide experts declared Israel's mass killings of 43,000 civilians and the displacement of 1.5 million an actual and non-hypothetical act of genocide televised live before our eyes. If you are so inclined to understand what this map actually means for the students and what "from the river to the sea" means for Palestinians (not a call to genocide, nor erasure, but an affirmation of Palestinian legacies), then consider watching this 4 minute clip from my debate with a dean at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics commissioned by David Axelrod https://youtu.be/o71x3zqphm4. Also consider the question: Would Ukrainian students be harassed/investigated for not putting Crimea as Russian on their maps? And if Russian students, parents or external groups were to demand that be the case, how would the school respond?
Sixth and last, if there is one serious infraction that occurred over the weekend, it is namely an adult from the Israel booth finding fit to walk over and threaten and intimidate minors at the Palestine booth. As such, if there is to be any further investigation, then this matter should be its impetus. Even parents from the other side were disturbed by what they witnessed. SEE attached screenshot: Image 2.jpeg
Thank you for taking the time to read our letter.
I and my colleagues look forward to your response.
Sincerely signed:
Ahmed M. Rehab (Executive Director)
Heena Musabji (Legal Director)
Maggie Slavin (School Support Coordinator & Former CPS Teacher)
CAIR-Chicago
www.cairchicago.org
Our second letter to District 125 Administration (sent Feb 6, 2025)
Dear Dr. Custable et al,
It has now been 10 days since my letter to you. I have not received any response or acknowledgement. Over the 20 years that we have worked with schools regarding concerns of Muslim students/parents, our experience has always been one of mutually constructive conversation, so I will be honest, the lack of responsiveness here is extremely disappointing and frankly surprising.
Adding to our dismay, we note that CJA reported via its social media that the school/board promptly responded to their campaign and furthermore agreed with them that the display at the Palestinian booth is "offensive and hurtful."
Below are my immediate concerns, quotes in bold are from Dr. Custable's response to CJA published on their social media?
"We completely understand why the information presented in the Palestine booth was offensive and hurtful." Is it the administration's position that it should take one side of the story, the side that shouts the loudest? Did the administration make any attempt to understand why the information presented in the Palestine booth meant something completely different from the perspective of those who put it up than from what others attributed to them? Did it make any attempt to engage my organization, our state's only Muslim civil rights organization, to understand their narrative and expression? Easier still, did it merely respond to our proactive attempt at engagement? Did it engage the students/parents in question to "understand"? Or did it just take the other side's word for it?
It is not the role of the administrators to inject their personal agreement or disagreement with two differing sides but to ensure the safety of students, as well as to protect their right to genuine self-expression and representation of self, story, and identity. It is certainly not to abet external groups in erasing those cherished human rights.
Had you followed an equitable process in hearing from both sides equally, and allowed our students their rightful agency to self-expression rather than afford their attackers the right to interpret for them, you would have learned that the map decorated in a watermelon pattern - which is NOT a national flag but a cultural symbol of Palestinian resistance to erasure - is but a legitimate affirmation of the historical familial legacy of uprooted Palestinian families (only a generation or two ago) to their ancestral villages throughout the map. The school, having been subjected to 2500 external emails orchestrated by CJA, seemed to cede to the group’s demand that to express that familial and cultural legacy is "offensive."
My organization's refusal to rally our many, many concerned community members to send you thousands of emails (which we are perfectly capable of doing) and instead observing respect and deference to your internal process and ecosystem (which we promote within schools) should not have counted against our students.
It is a well-documented aspect of colonialism that colonized people's right to self-expression is denied and words are put into their mouths by powers that oppress them. We do not expect our administrators, to whom our minors are entrusted for a wholesome education of mind and spirit, to hold them captives to that violation, and to so thoughtlessly empower their oppressors at the behest of external pressure groups.
"We are now collaborating with the appropriate individuals in the school to ensure a prior review of posters and materials to ensure similar incidents do not occur in the future." It is extremely worrying that rather than engage in a fair process where an effort to listen and understand is afforded to both sides equally, you took the word of one side and allowed them to speak for the other; moreover, declaring your intent to institute policy based on this process naturally raises fears of enshrining this exhibited bias into policy. I think there needs to be a pause, and reflection. There is no shame in the recognition that this could and should have been handled better.
"If you would like to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. I would be happy to address any additional questions or concerns you may have." Again, why wasn't this level of responsiveness and readiness for conversation equally afforded to our organization when we sent our detailed concerns, based on the appeal of many parents, detailed below?
I look forward to your immediate response and a conversation based on mutual respect, understanding, and goodwill. As a civil rights organization, we do not concern ourselves with political or ideological posturing, but with rights and processes: namely, we prioritize the protection of the right of ALL students to ecosystems of safety, and respect for self-identity. self-growth, equal treatment, and fair process.
Ahmed M. Rehab
Executive Director
CAIR-Chicago
www.cairchicago.org
IN THE MEDIA:
Stevenson High School District 125 officials said Tuesday they will institute policy changes after a pro-Palestinian student group was required to cover up and remove “false and inaccurate information” in their school cultural fair display over the weekend…
…Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sent a letter to district officials Tuesday asking that Stevenson be a “sacred space” for the free expression of conscience and that differences be negotiated through debate.
Whatever review processes are put in place going forward, Rehab said they should be equitable for all groups.
“Here we have a situation where it is attempting to silence and confiscate people’s freedom of expression,” Rehab said.
He questioned if there would be the same reaction if a Russian group objected to a Ukrainian student putting up a map that included Crimea as part of Ukraine.
“That map means what they mean it to mean … the legacy of Palestinians is throughout this whole land,” Rehab said. “Their stories are throughout this whole land, their ancestry throughout this whole land. This isn’t even a political statement. This is a cultural reality and historical reality.”
Both sides are expected to be at the next school board meeting Feb. 10.