An Israeli teacher was forced to stop teaching her students after she arrived at her elementary school in Even Yehuda in a shirt emblazoned with the phrase There is No Education Without Democracy.
The school’s Principal ruled this was expressing a political position which should not be allowed at the school.
The teacher, who had taken part in demonstrations against the Government’s proposed judicial reforms, said she encountered “severe resistance” over her shirt with an implied threat that security would be called if she did not change it.
“I was again required to take off my shirt, and when I refused I was forbidden to enter the classrooms and was told that I had to sit in the teachers’ room until the end of the day,” she said.
“What is political about supporting democracy, the basis for the common existence of all of us?
“How does it not fit with education for pluralism and freedom of expression?”
The teacher said the incidence had saddened her, but she did not intend to stop advocating for her political beliefs.
In response, the Ministry of Education issued a statement saying the teacher had “arrived on school grounds while promoting a political agenda in a provocative manner when she wore a shirt identifying with the protest and handed out protest shirts to the students”.
“A teaching employee must not conduct propaganda by themselves or by an agent on their behalf within the territory of an educational institution and-or among students of an educational institution,” the Ministry said.
“This does not contradict the right of a teacher or administrator to vote and-or adhere to this or that political opinion as a private individual.”
Jerusalem, 24 March 2023
