A Palestinian student was expelled from his high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, over his mother’s pro-Palestine social media posts, CNN reports.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has urged the US Department of Education to investigate 15-year-old Jad Abuhamda’s expulsion from the Pine Crest School on November 19.
Abuhamda’s mother, Maha Almasri, was a math teacher at the private school until it fired her because of social media posts it deemed “hateful and incendiary,” CNN reported.
Pine Crest said her posts had “the possibility of inciting hatred and creating a climate of fear,” in a media release on its website.
The school said it also removed her son because in cases of “disruptive, intimidating, or overly aggressive” behavior from parents, the school may “take the action that it deems necessary to address the situation.”
It decided to “separate” the family from the school, it said.
On October 7, Hamas militants launched a terrorist attack on Israel, killing 1,200 and taking over 200 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory air strikes and ground invasion of Gaza has left more than 18,000 dead, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
CAIR’s Florida chapter called the comments about Almasri and her son on Pine Crest’s website “false and defamatory.” Almasri told CNN her posts were taken out of context, and her son has been subjected to wrongful treatment.
The school said it investigated the matter and communicated with Almasri multiple times about her conduct.
“Her behavior was also such that the school believed it could increase the risk of violence in our community and compromise the safety of our students, employees, and families,” the school said in its statement.
It said she had violated its employment policies and “parent expectations that families agree to abide by”, adding that she had also posted images of herself wearing her school lanyard, which “clearly identified her as a Pine Crest employee and improperly linked her posts to the School”.
Pine Crest said one of the posts it deemed incendiary was an image of a “soldier pointing a machine gun at an infant inside of an incubator and an image with commentary suggesting that some wanted to roast babies in an oven.” Business Insider was not able to independently verify the posts.
CAIR said Almasri’s posts criticized Israel’s “collective brutality” against Gaza.
The news comes two months after Florida university system chancellor ordered any chapters of the Students for Justice in Palestine group at state universities to be disbanded and cease on-campus activism.
BI reached out to Almasri for comment.
