Remember how the agency that oversees Washington public schools put out a problematic document about Islamophobia last year? With CAIR-WA’s input, they finally re-issued a fully updated version.
Why it matters:
This is an example of how we achieve structural change. CAIR-WA is uniquely positioned to step in and navigate both parents’ needs and government agencies processes, on behalf of our community.
This incredible achievement was not about one meeting with a policymaker; it was about having those ongoing difficult conversations with officials and lawmakers, speaking up and out about this issue publicly.
Through this process, we have established stronger relationships and built a foundation, so that we can work towards a more just future.
Background:
At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) put out a document called “Preventing and Responding to Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Discriminatory Harassment in Schools”.
OSPI is the government agency that oversees public K–12 education in Washington state.
[Content warning for anti-Palestinian language in the following paragraphs]
The first version of the document included this sentence: “Schools and students should also be aware that the slogan ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is antisemitic and has been used by Hamas as a rallying cry denying the right of the State of Israel to exist.”
Within days, OSPI received feedback from community members about how biased this sentence was, and updated the document to instead include the following sentence: “Schools and students should also be aware that the phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ may be perceived as being antisemitic.”
The updated language still targeted Palestinian students, families, and staff, and erased their lives and experiences. It had the potential to lead to unfair and disproportionate discipline for any student standing up for Palestinian human rights. We had seen an increase in anti-Muslim discrimination and bullying in schools over the past year, and many families were concerned that this guidance would lead to even more hostile environments for their children.
Other issues with the document included the following.
- Areas of the document suggested that schools should “exercise caution” in planning and responding to student protests and other advocacy out of concern that such protests would include discriminatory harassment, which tied directly to suppression of student voices in relation to walkouts for Palestine, or student journalism on such walkouts, for example.
- The document included links to articles written by the ADL, which has a long history of targeting civil rights activists and movements.
- It included very little information about anti-Muslim bias and Islamophobia.
- We were concerned about how antisemitism and Islamophobia were being treated in the document as either similar or opposing forces. Jewish and Muslim students face different biases which should be addressed separately.
- Finally, the document was written without consulting any Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian groups or individuals.
CAIR-WA, along with Palestinian, Muslim, and Jewish parents and community members, met with OSPI to address these concerns. The meeting was a positive step, and we were optimistic about working with this agency to update the guidance.
However, by our advocacy day in Olympia in February 2025, the document was unchanged, still being referenced by teachers and administrators as guidance for how to respond to students. We spoke about the document during our advocacy day, and within days, OSPI had reached out to us to inform us that they had removed the most problematic sentence and indicating that we could work together to rewrite this document and create separate guidance on Islamophobia.
After many, many hours of reading, editing, consulting community members, and sending edits back and forth, OSPI and CAIR-WA came to a final document which addressed the underlying issues that led to the guidance in the first place: what schools’ responsibilities were towards student free speech rights and towards preventing and responding to discriminatory harassment.
What’s next:
The new document is now available on the Discriminatory Harassment page on the OSPI website, and will be included in start-of-school-year communications to district civil rights officers. It is our hope that with this updated guidance we will see more positive outcomes for Palestinian and Muslim students, families, and staff in Washington’s K-12 schools.
The next step in our work with OSPI is to create standalone guidance for Islamophobia for districts and schools. This kind of standalone guidance currently exists for other marginalized groups. We strongly believe that better education and resourcing about what Islamophobia is and how it manifests in schools is key to building safer and more welcoming schools for our children.