Texas teacher fired for refusing to sign anti-BDS oath
Bahia Amawi, a primary school teacher in Texas who was fired for refusing to sign an anti-BDS oath in her contract
Report in Middle East Monitor:
A primary school teacher in Texas has been fired for refusing to sign an anti-BDS oath embedded in her employment contract. Bahia Amawi is a language specialist who works with autistic and speech-impaired primary school children. She has been told that she can no longer work in the state’s public schools after she “refused to sign an oath vowing that she ‘does not’ and ‘will not’ engage in a boycott of Israel or ‘otherwise take any action that is intended to inflict economic harm [on Israel]’,” the Intercept revealed yesterday.
Amawi has held a contract with Pflugerville Independent School District – the body which oversees schools in and around Texas state capital Austin – for almost ten years, but upon renewing her contract in August discovered an additional clause had been inserted into the paperwork. The clause required Amawi to pledge that she “does not currently boycott Israel,” that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract” and that she will refrain from any action “that is intended to penalise, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory.”
Such phrasing would effectively bar Amawi from supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, boycotting goods produced on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank or even expressing support for either of these actions since, as the Intercept points out, “such speech could be seen as ‘intended to penalise, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel’.”