The following speech was given by a NYC public school school teacher at our May Day march in Brooklyn, NY.

I am a New York City public school teacher who teaches history. In November, I openly supported students who wrote a letter to demand the school administration take a stance against antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism, and that the school create a space to mourn the death of Palestinian workers.

In response to my advocacy for students, two days later in the middle of my class, an assistant principal told me to dismiss early, that I was under investigation and removed from the classroom, that I wouldn’t get union representation, and that I had to turn in my keys and was now barred from all contact with students and parents.

For 100 days after, I was placed in a reassignment center called the “rubberroom” without ever being charged. I was not given a chance to defend myself, I was kept in total isolation. Isolation is a strategy of the bosses to force people to stay quiet and disconnected from fellow teachers and the school community at large.

In fact, they call the reassignment center the rubber room because the rubber room is where you place people who are “crazy” and because it is meant to break people’s spirits. For four months, I sat in a windowless room with flickering fluorescent lights.

Instead of solid walls, 10 rubber-roomed teachers sat silently for eight hours a day surrounded by glass walls so that we could be monitored and disciplined by supervisory staff. I lost track of time in that room and was constantly reminded of how I should internalize the bosses punishment, that I should internalize in isolation some sort of guilt.

By disappearing me from school, it sent the message to other teachers and students that speaking out against genocide meant reprisals. That you all have to fall in line or even cheer for U.S. bombs being dropped on Gaza or else you will lose your job, not get into college, be expelled from your community.  

I confess, I often broke down—the whole situation felt overwhelming. I had to constantly remind myself of my commitment to a better, more egalitarian world, and my love for students to keep myself sane. Ultimately, it was the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) that helped me and my entire school community fight against silencing and isolation. They helped give us the support to overcome cynicism and turn it around into a fight with the capitalist school system.

With the support of PLP, we were able to fight back and combat my own cynicism and feelings of despair. They organized and constantly reminded me that I was not alone and that we can and need to win.I was connected with teachers who faced similar circumstances from the Bay Area, Maryland, and Michigan. In addition, the Party mobilized a defense committee of teachers, parents, and students who were brought around communist ideas of class struggle.

Days after I was removed, over 100 students with their parents' support, immediately sent letters of protest to the school administration, superintendent, and school chancellors. Parents called the school and agitated against the administration in person during school.

A comrade also organized my local school union chapter into a class struggle chapter. Teachers came to the largest union meeting ever at school and sent a signal to administration that teachers would not be silenced or harassed. Many teachers spoke out about their sexist, racist experiences with the bosses. Now long-term committees are being organized and a newsletter is being written to maintain the struggle and broaden it out to support more workers at school.

Because of the power of this collective fightback, I was finally returned to the classroom! That no one is alone in the struggle and that we are stronger together in a Party was a key lesson that I learned! If you haven’t joined the Party and are a member of the club, you should because it will sustain you and one day empower you to stand with oppressed and exploited people. We need to build a base that can mobilize to defend people under attack.

I saw the power of an alliance of students, parents, and educators who are politicized, energized, and organized. It took the entire school community to win! This victory is to be celebrated. However, winning this reform is not nearly enough. Without a revolutionary party to fight for a communist horizon, it is too easy to forget the lessons of struggle in this Dark Night. One such lesson from the past that should not be forgotten is the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung, which saw nearly all German teachers disciplined to enlist in the project of fascism. Joe Biden and his liberal misleaders are preparing the working class for sacrifice, war, and genocide through isolation and silencing—a version of their own Nazi Gleichschaltung. All of this is to indoctrinate young people so that they are willing cogs in the fascist machine.

It is our task as educators, as communists, and as members of a Party to show young people that there is an alternative. That there is another path away from genocide. That people are not alone in the fight for a better world but that people have and will stand against the genocidal capitalist bosses. We must fight for communism which empowers the entire working class across borders from here to cop-city in Atlanta, to Sudan, to Palestine.