Texas school district won’t renew her contract because she boycotts Israel, lawsuit says | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Bahia Amawi has been a contract worker with Pflugerville Independent School District for nine years, according to her lawsuit.

But some new language appeared in her contract before the 2018-19 school year, and she didn’t feel right about signing.

Amawi was being told that she could continue her employment with the district, as a speech language pathologist, if she agreed to this new language. But it was essentially a pro-Israel oath.

She was told to initial a section that states that she “does not boycott Israel” and “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.”

There was just one problem, according to The Intercept — Amawi’s conscience. In the course of her day-to-day life, Amawi and her family do not buy products from Israeli brands.

“Absolutely not. I couldn’t in good conscience do that,” she told the website. “If I did, I would not only be betraying Palestinians suffering under an occupation that I believe is unjust and thus, become complicit in their repression, but I’d also be betraying my fellow Americans by enabling violations of our constitutional rights to free speech and to protest peacefully.”

The law was enacted in Texas in 2017 and is commonly referred to as Texas’ “No boycott of Israel” law. It expresses Texas’ pro-Israel position, to the point of banning state-affiliated entities from doing business with any company — or contractor in this case — that opposes Israel.

Texas is one of 26 states in the U.S. with some sort of anti-boycott legislation on the books, according to Palestine Legal.

Amawi and her lawyers say that the state’s ban unfairly infringed her right to free speech. The lawsuit was filed in federal court Monday in Austin.

“My rights were taken away,” Amawi said during a news conference Monday announcing the lawsuit. “This is an attack on all our civil liberties.”

She said she didn’t see the connection between her duties conducting speech therapy with students in the Austin area and which side she took on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the matter is pure and simple.

“Texas stands with Israel,” he tweeted in response to the lawsuit’s announcement. “Period.”