Protesters Call on Philadelphia School District to Reinstate Northeast High School Teacher Keziah Ridgeway, Calling her Suspension Islamophobic
Lauren Abunassar
Over 30 demonstrators interrupted the Philadelphia School District’s monthly board meeting at district headquarters this past Thursday, October 24th, calling on the district to reinstate suspended Northeast High School teacher Keziah Ridgeway. Ridgeway, 39, teaches African American history and social and cultural anthropology at Northeast, where she has taught her students about Palestine and has been supportive of her Arab and Muslim students who have been struggling to make sense of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza over the past year. A Black Muslim-American, Ridgeway has been a longtime advocate of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in school.
Over 30 Philadelphia School District parents, educators and community members with Philly Parents for Palestine interrupted the Philadelphia School District’s monthly board meeting on October 24 to demand that the Board of Education reinstate suspended Northeast High School teacher Keziah Ridgeway. Photo courtesy: Jewish Voice for Peace Philly.
Ridgeway’s suspension, which began seven weeks ago, can be traced to a complaint lodged against her on September 4 by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which is being represented by the Deborah Project, a legal advocacy organization that claims to address anti-Semitic abuses in national educational systems. The complaint against Ridgeway alleges that she made veiled threats on her Instagram account toward Jewish community members, however, the posts made no reference to Jews. In one post that the Federation cites, Ridgeway asks for recommendations of Black-owned Philadelphia gun stores, and in a separate post, Ridgeway quotes the Cash Box Kings lyric “Ain’t no fun when the rabbit gets the gun.” Ridgeway’s ethnically and religiously diverse supporters — some of whom have kids in Ridgeway’s class — have expressed outrage over the allegations — calling them Islamophobic and racist. They insist that she is only being targeted because she is a Black-Muslim woman and a supporter of Palestinian rights. After all, she has a decorated history as an educator, appearing on CNN, CBS, and USA Today.
“We are prepared to miss dinner with our families and bedtime stories with our children in order to stop this meeting from proceeding until our demands are met,” one protestor told the school board on Thursday. Community members then began chanting “Reinstate Keziah” – a message directed at school district Superintendent Tony Watlington.
“Ms. Ridgeway was just an amazing teacher… She changed how I see the world and how I act towards people.”
Board members eventually moved to a private room to vote on their agenda, denying community members access to the room. This raised concerns with protesters that the meeting was in violation of the Sunshine Act, which requires government meetings to be public. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the board’s continued live streaming of the meeting may not have been sufficient to remain in compliance with the Sunshine Act. Meanwhile, protesters continued to rally both outside and in the lobby of the building as deliberation continued.
Efforts to get Ridgeway reinstated, including Thursday’s demonstration, have largely been led by Philadelphia Parents for Palestine. The grassroots organization, dedicated to advocating for Palestinian inclusivity and free speech in area schools, has been circulating a petition, which now boasts over 2,500 signatures, to reinstate Ridgeway.
Jethro Heiko, whose daughter, Hazel Heiko, was a student in Ridgeway’s sophomore class last year, founded Philadelphia Parents for Palestine this year after learning about the efforts of a grassroots group to censor some of Ridgeway's students. As part of their classwork, the students produced a podcast exploring Palestinian identity and resistance. Despite having no formal affiliation with the school district, a newly formed group calling itself the Jewish American Friends & Family Alliance (formerly School District of Philadelphia Jewish Family Association) successfully pressured the district to block the students from presenting their podcast at Northeast High’s Black History Month assemblies, Al-Bustan News reported in March.
Jethro Heiko, who is Jewish, lamented the fact that the organization was purporting to represent Jewish families in the district. “I’m Jewish. I’m very sensitive to anti-Semitism. I’ve studied anti-Semitism. When I was my daughter's age, my family was the victim of a pretty serious anti-Semitic incident where we lived in Massachusetts,” Heiko told Al-Bustan News in an interview. “But since October 7th, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is doubling down on this very dangerous idea of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. And alongside that, we see a surge in groups who claim to speak for Jews, but who never actually ask Jewish parents in the community that have been impacted for guidance.”
Keziah Ridgeway has been teaching since 2011 and attended both primary school, high school, and college in Philadelphia. Photo by Drew Dennis.
As Heiko began learning more about Ridgeway’s struggles, he was disturbed. After all, he calls Ridgeway a once-in-a-lifetime kind of teacher who had a visible and immense impact on his daughter. He wondered if efforts to target Ridgeway had nothing to do with her specifically but were a part of a broader “Don’t Say Palestine” mentality that is taking root in the district.
According to Heiko, the district’s pervasive silence in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza ignores the significant Arab and Palestinian population at Northeast High School, and is also detrimental to all students’ right to learn. “I think students in the Philadelphia district, including Jewish Zionist students, are interested in having real conversations [about Israel-Palestine] and are not so happy with the fact that there's Jewish organizations saying not to,” Heiko said.
Philadelphia Educators for Palestine has issued a list of demands to the district, asking it to condemn the genocide waged on Palestinians; to protect students’ rights to discuss Palestine, Islamophobia, and racism; and to address discriminatory treatment and censorship more promptly. The group has also drawn attention to a potential conflict of interest in that Board of Education member Joan N. Stern is a trustee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Many Ridgeway supporters wonder if that might lead to a lack of protections for educators advocating for Palestine.
“Ms. Ridgeway was just an amazing teacher… She changed how I see the world and how I act towards people,” Hazel Heiko, who was a student in Ridgeway’s honors African American History class last year, told Al-Bustan News. “I’m friends with a lot of her current [anthropology] students and right now, they have a substitute who doesn’t actually teach anything. I think the district should, first of all, be faster in their response because [Ridgeway’s] students are being affected and the district is just staying silent. And I think there definitely should be resources to get teachers to talk about an ongoing genocide.” After all, she said, students are being inundated with images of the genocide online every day. “No matter what the district is doing, they're not hiding this travesty from us. They're not protecting us from anything by censoring student work [or suspending Ms. Ridgeway].”
Ridgeway, who won a 2020 Lindback Foundation award for outstanding teaching, is one of the only teachers at Northeast High qualified to teach International Baccalaureate (IB) Anthropology class. As a result, her absence has been deeply felt. Protesters at Thursday’s meeting asked the board to consider how Advanced Placement (AP) and IB students would fall behind with her absence, noting that some students already dropped out of her classes since substitute teachers were not qualified to prepare them for year-end exams. Heiko, a junior at Northeast, noted how it also represents a broader issue many students have with the district: the fact that they seem to be blocking any attempts to teach or discuss Palestine in the classroom. “Obviously talking about genocide is uncomfortable,” the young Heiko said. “But Palestinian students [at Northeast High school] are more uncomfortable. And so, we should be able to talk about these uncomfortable things in school.”
“Outside organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Deborah Project, and the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia have been systematically pressuring the Board to crack down on students and educators in our schools speaking out and teaching about the Israeli military and government’s genocide in Gaza,” reads a Philly Parents for Palestine Instagram post. Photo courtesy: Jewish Voice for Peace Philly.
Though Ridgeway was not present at Thursday’s protest, her sister, Ronita Jones, told NBC “We look to the school board to support our teachers, to support our students, support the parents. But they're supporting outsiders that have nothing to do with anything that’s going on. They don’t even have children that go to Northeast High School.”
It’s something Jethro Heiko has also noted in his complaints about the district. “They’re treating teachers who teach about Palestine like pariahs. When really, they’re only teaching about something and creating space for something students and families are asking for… Underneath it all, I have this anger and frustration that people without children in the school district have more of a say in my daughter's education than I do,” Heiko told Al-Bustan News. “Part of the district’s efforts are to recruit teachers of color, given how incredibly diverse the district and Northeast High are. With Ms. Ridgeway, you have one of the most well-regarded, award- winning high school teachers in the district, becoming a target. And no officials are coming to her defense. Where is the city council? Where are state representatives? Where is the mayor? They hold up teachers all the time when they’re not doing something controversial.”
Rouz Lami, a Palestinian parent of three Northeast students and two Northeast alums praised Ridgeway’s practice of teaching about injustice of all kinds — not just those impacting Palestinians. One of Lami’s daughters was a student in Ridgeway’s class and Lami is adamant that, despite the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, the district offered no meaningful support to her children. “Ms. Ridgeway was the only support my girls had,” Lami told Al-Bustan News, adding that her daughters were repeatedly approached by school staff and instructed not to wear keffiyehs or Palestine pins. In contrast, Ms. Ridgeway’s classroom was a more inclusive space that offered some comfort to Lami’s daughter who, she noted, must deal with watching the genocide of her people, her homeland, on the news every day.
Today, Lami does not understand why the district suspended Ridgeway or why it has taken such a harsh stance on Palestine. “It’s nothing new,” she said. “It’s always hush about Palestine. Growing up, I always heard ‘Don’t say you’re Palestinian. You don’t know who will be upset by this.’ My kids usually don’t care. They’re not scared. And yet, [the suspension of Ridgeway] happens and I’m scared because it’s teaching my kids to stop talking about Palestine.”
Though Lami held back tears while describing the hopelessness she feels over Ridgeway’s suspension and the district’s refusal to acknowledge Arab Philadelphians’ concerns, she does find comfort in finding community among Philadelphia Parents for Palestine organizers. For her, it’s a crucial way of staving off complete despair. “There is hope in seeing these beautiful people supporting each other, even if the district, or the government as a whole, is not listening,” she said.
And ultimately, Lami will continue to fight for Ridgeway and for the chance to be heard. After all: “I don’t want to look back and say I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I won’t give up. That’s what keeps [me] going.”
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Lauren Abunassar is a Palestinian American writer and journalist. A Media Fellow at Al-Bustan News, she holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MA in journalism from NYU. Her first book Coriolis was published as winner of the 2023 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.