On Sunday morning, I woke up to the news that at least 31 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed and many injured as Israeli tanks opened fire at an aid distribution center.

This comes days after top U.N. officials have said that Gazans are being subject to forced starvation after a nearly three-month blockade. The most conservative death tolls of the war in Gaza cite at least 50,000 dead, one-third of whom are under the age of 18. Concurrently, the Israeli knesset has announced plans to significantly expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that is illegal under international law.

While Gaza is reduced to rubble, the Beaverton school board has hired an outside investigator because some community members consider Dr. Tammy Carpenter’s outspoken support for Palestine as antisemitic.

In the Beaverton School District, Palestine is a four-letter word. To speak of these well-documented atrocities, to name the history of colonialism, occupation and apartheid that foregrounds this war, to dare condemn one of the most horrific human rights catastrophes the world has ever seen, is cause for censure.

I first met Dr. Carpenter nearly two years ago at a Beaverton School District listening session held at Bilal Msajid Mosque. In a room filled with Muslim and Arab students and their families, speaker after speaker described the toll Israel’s assault on Gaza was taking on them. Students spoke of murdered cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, sleepless nights spent watching the horrifying images on the news, the creeping fear that the wave of censorship targeting pro-Palestinian supporters nationwide would soon reach Beaverton.

It turns out this fear was well-founded. Since October 2023, we’ve seen university students suspended for chanting “Free Palestine,” international students detained for writing op-eds, professors disciplined or dismissed for criticizing Israeli policy.

In this hostile climate, Dr. Carpenter was the sole school board member willing to say “Palestine” aloud and to state, in language borrowed from leading human rights organizations, that Palestinians are facing ethnic cleansing. She has continued to take that principled stance despite the political cost of doing so or the myriad attempts to silence her.

We are told that condemning the killing of children, the bombing of hospitals, the flattening of schools, and the targeting of journalists is antisemitic. We are asked to side with one of the world’s most powerful armies, financed by U.S. dollars, sustained through U.S. weaponry, against a besieged population. And yet, groups like the Jewish Federation of Portland weaponize accusations of antisemitism to shut down dissent, conflating all criticism of Israel or its policies as an attack on Jewish people. This is an insult to the moral intelligence of Beaverton residents.

It is shameful that the members of the Beaverton school board, instead of standing with Dr. Carpenter and defending her right to free speech, have chosen to validate a meritless political witch hunt. In Portland-based writer Omar El Akkad’s latest book, he writes: “One day, when it is safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”

I salute Dr. Carpenter for standing on the right side of history. And shame on the Beaverton school board members Susan Greenberg, Karen Perez-Da Silva, Melissa Potter, Sunita Garg and Justice Rajee for betraying the courage and integrity their offices require.

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Jamila Osman is a graduate of the Beaverton School District and a former Beaverton School District educator.