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Chad Lykins and Sarah Silkie, two Portland City Council candidates in District 4 who received endorsements from the Portland Association of Teachers, sent an email to supporters today criticizing the union’s advocacy for Palestine.
Their criticism is significant for two reasons: First, Lykins and Silkie are calling out a powerful public employee union that endorsed them. Secondly, their statement points to tactics and rhetoric the union used in support of Palestine that have not been previously reported.
The statement focused on a training session that the teachers’ union held at the end of May called “Know Your Rights: Teaching and Advocating for Palestine Within Portland Public Schools,” during which the union handed out literature on Palestine, with titles like “The Nakba Never Ended,” “The Palestinian Struggle for National Liberation,” and “Reject Pinkwashing: No Queer Liberation Without Palestinian Liberation!” WW obtained copies of the materials from a teacher who attended the training.
The session went hand in hand with a guide that the union published under the same name, which ignited outrage after WW and other news organizations reported on it.
As of now, there’s no evidence that any of the materials handed out at the training session have been used in a classroom.
Lykins and Silkie expressed dismay at the content of the materials.
“We were shocked and disappointed by some of the actions and curricular materials at the Know Your Rights training held at PAT headquarters. While other examples abound, the inclusion of an upside-down triangle designed to resemble a rifle sight used to kill Israelis is particularly unsettling,” Lykins and Silkie wrote. “These materials were especially offensive to Jewish and Israeli community members for whom public schools should be a safe haven from hate and intimidation.”
Still, Lykins and Silkie wrote that they were “grateful and honored to earn the support of Portland’s teachers.”
“Our campaigns are working with the union and they are being responsive,” Lykins and Silkie wrote, though Lykins’ campaign manager declined to share the substance of their communications. “Union leaders have done nothing to merit the vitriol and threats they have received, and we unconditionally condemn such harassment.”
Lykins and Silkie are the second and third candidates to receive the union’s endorsement but push back against the tenor of its advocacy.
Jesse Cornett, who is running in District 3, became the first to make a public statement on the issue when he sent out an email calling on the union to stop using the phrase “From the River to the Sea” 10 days ago. (The union also published online curriculum that directed students to pray to Allah and write letters to Joe Biden demanding a cease-fire, among other actions. It has since taken those lessons and the guide down, pledging to rework and republish it in the coming weeks.)
Lykins and Silkie wrote in their letter, “In light of the harm caused, we urge PAT to continue active outreach to these communities to let them know that PAT will fight for their safety and inclusion.”
Another handout passed around at the May training session is titled “Setting the Tone for This Space” and lists 10 norms for the training, including: “We will center Palestinians and Palestinian liberation and all conversations and activities and we recognize that Palestinians are always taking the biggest risks in the fight for liberation.”
Another reads, “We will stay grounded in what we know and recognize how what we know about the world has been shaped by US settler society.”
One of the pages in the handout titled “The Palestinian Struggle for National Liberation” debunks “myths” about the Palestinian struggle, including that there are “too many sides and complexities”.
The same handout also encourages the dissemination of “physical propaganda.”
A representative of the PAT did not respond to a request for comment.