It is clear still today, that freedom of speech and of thinking can be attacked in the United States without the intellectual and moral leaders of this land raising a hand or saying a word in protest or defense, except in the case of the saving few. Their ranks did not include the heads of the great universities, the leaders of religion, or most of the great names in science. Than this fateful silence there is on earth no greater menace to present civilization.
— W. E. B. Du Bois, 1960
I have returned to these words from W. E. B. Du Bois as I have watched educational institutions respond to the political attacks on curriculum and the educators responsible for developing it. Du Bois understood that intellectual freedom could be undermined through the unwillingness of institutional leaders to defend it. His warning feels particularly relevant in Philadelphia, where a sustained campaign against critical social studies has unfolded alongside increasing scrutiny of my professional leadership and changes in the School District of Philadelphia’s approach to curriculum development.
On October 21, 2026, the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce released its majority staff report, Antisemitism in K–12 Schools. The report identifies me by name, accuses me of rationalizing violence against Jews, and references my pending termination. It also states that the District informed the Committee that teachers and administrators would no longer write social studies curriculum and that the District would move toward standardization with national experts.
These claims appear within the report’s broader allegation that District employees responsible for curriculum development have promoted antisemitism. This matters. The report presents the changes to curriculum development and my pending termination as part of the District’s response to complaints about antisemitism, although my disciplinary proceedings concern separate administrative allegations that I continue to contest.
I have spent considerable time examining how the complaints against my work developed and how they were subsequently handled. I do not understand my pending termination as an isolated personnel dispute. The complaints about antisemitism, the growing political scrutiny of our curriculum, and the administrative actions that followed belong to a chronology that deserves examination. Their relationship is central to how I understand what has happened.
The congressional report makes that relationship more visible while also demonstrating the dangers of allowing politically interested accounts to become authoritative explanations of educational work.
Among the sources cited in the report are materials produced by the North American Values Institute (NAVI), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. These organizations have raised concerns about antisemitism and challenged aspects of Philadelphia’s curriculum or my leadership. Their participation in public debate is legitimate. The question is how their allegations are evaluated before becoming part of an official congressional account.
The report describes curriculum materials concerning colonialism, capitalism, and resistance as evidence of ideological indoctrination. It criticizes the inclusion of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said and treats scholarship examining colonial power as suspect. In doing so, the report enters a much older struggle over who determines which historical interpretations belong in public education.
Carter G. Woodson understood the significance of that struggle. His criticism of American education concerned the assumptions through which historical knowledge was organized. The exclusion of African people from historical narratives shaped how students understood civilization and their place within it. Black Studies emerged from generations of efforts to challenge those assumptions and expand the intellectual foundations of education.
This tradition informed my work in Philadelphia. I wanted students to examine historical evidence and encounter scholarship capable of explaining the development of the modern world, including its histories of exploitation and resistance. Curriculum development involved sustained collaboration with teachers, scholars, and community organizations. We debated interpretations, revised lessons, and considered how young people might engage difficult historical questions.
Those conversations were part of what made the work meaningful. Curriculum should remain open to criticism, especially when concerns involve discrimination. Antisemitism is a serious matter that schools have a responsibility to address. But evaluating allegations requires attention to evidence and context. The presence of a particular scholar or historical framework in a lesson cannot establish, on its own, that students are being indoctrinated.
The congressional report illustrates this problem in its treatment of curriculum materials. A lesson’s reference to Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence becomes part of an argument that the District legitimizes violent resistance. A reading about Edward Said is presented through claims about his influence on contemporary antisemitism. The educational purposes of studying these thinkers receive comparatively little attention.
There are legitimate questions educators can ask about how such material is taught. Students should examine arguments critically and understand the historical circumstances in which they emerged. That work becomes more difficult when political opposition to a scholar’s ideas is treated as sufficient reason to question their place in the curriculum.
The report’s treatment of my professional circumstances raises a related concern. On page 7, it alleges that I repeatedly rationalized violence against Jews. On page 8, it discusses the District’s movement away from curriculum written by teachers or administrators and then notes my pending termination. The report does not establish that my administrative charges arose from a finding that I promoted antisemitism through the curriculum.
I dispute the District’s proposed disciplinary action and intend to address its specific allegations through the administrative hearing process. But I also believe the origins of the complaints against my work and the institutional responses that followed are relevant to understanding the proceedings. The chronology should be examined in its entirety.
This is where the broader history of Black educational leadership becomes important. Following Brown v. Board of Education, Black teachers and administrators experienced widespread displacement as school systems reorganized under desegregation. Many of those decisions were explained through administrative considerations, although their consequences unfolded within longstanding struggles over Black educational authority. The circumstances are different today, but that history reminds us that institutional decisions must be examined within the political conditions in which they occur.
In Philadelphia, those conditions include organized opposition to critical approaches to history and a congressional investigation that now places my professional standing within a national narrative about antisemitism. The District has defended its curriculum against accusations of indoctrination while also changing how that curriculum will be developed. These decisions deserve public examination because they shape the intellectual work educators will be permitted and encouraged to undertake.
I understand these developments within a broader pattern of accommodation to authoritarian political pressure. Across the country, movements seeking to restrict the teaching of race, colonialism, and inequality have targeted the scholarship educators use and the professional standing of those who introduce it. The methods of intimidation and ideological control associated with these campaigns raise concerns about fascist political tendencies. That judgment should be understood in relation to those methods, rather than as a characterization of everyone who raises concerns about antisemitism or disagrees with a curriculum.
The consequences of such pressure extend beyond individual educators. When institutions become increasingly concerned with avoiding controversy, teachers may begin to reconsider which historical questions they are willing to pursue. Curriculum development can become an exercise in anticipating political objections, and the intellectual traditions that have expanded our understanding of history may gradually lose their place in public education.
Philadelphia’s African American history graduation requirement emerged from generations of Black educational organizing. It represents an understanding that young people deserve to encounter histories long marginalized within American schooling. The intellectual commitments behind that achievement require continued attention, particularly when the scholarship that gives the subject its depth becomes politically controversial.
I remain proud of the work I helped lead in the Social Studies Department and of the educators and community partners who contributed to it. I believe our efforts reflected a serious commitment to historical inquiry and to the students of Philadelphia. The controversy surrounding that work has not changed my understanding of its value.
Du Bois’s warning returns us to the responsibility of institutional leadership. He recognized that attacks on intellectual freedom could succeed when those entrusted with defending it became accustomed to accommodation. The danger was found in the cumulative effect of decisions that made intellectual independence increasingly difficult to sustain.
The congressional report has created a public record that deserves close scrutiny. It raises questions about how advocacy claims become official findings and how educational institutions respond when their work becomes the target of political campaigns. My experience is part of that history, and I believe it should be understood within it.
The future of critical social studies in Philadelphia will depend on whether the District can sustain the intellectual freedom necessary for students to examine the world seriously. Political controversy will remain part of public education. The greater danger is allowing the fear of controversy to determine what young people are permitted to learn.
