Courage is as contagious as fear, and we are here to spread courage for our students. At the same time, we want our resistance to be strategic and sustainable. In that spirit, this article provides an overview of students’ and teachers’ free speech rights in and out of the classroom. Please keep it close at school so you can share it with other teachers, administrators, and parents.

“What we are seeing here in Los Angeles and in the United States right now is a settler colonial government that is doing a modern-day Indian removal. The core population of LA is from what is now Mexico, Central and South America. These are peoples who have been on these lands, who have been migrating across these lands, for thousands of years. The archaeological, anthropological, historical record proves that there have been thousands of years of migration here. These are peoples who have been following these routes on Turtle Island for millennia, and now they’re being criminalized, dehumanized, and removed.

Ethnic Studies gives you a lens to see that, to understand that. That’s why we see an attack on Ethnic Studies, because by understanding that history you are going to understand what is happening now, and you will be more apt to be against this Indian removal that is occurring right now in our very lifetimes—in the US and in Palestine. ” - Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona

In a powerful interview with CLES core member Jody Sokolower, educator and activist Sunny Brown shares her frontline experiences as a middle school teacher and college instructor in Atlanta, where she integrates liberatory pedagogy into classrooms under increasing political pressure.

“At the end of the day, if we want the full history, we're gonna have to take control of these schools,” she says. Brown urges communities to act boldly: “Run for office if you can, do something, so we can make sure that we're moving the needle the right way.”