In 2016, my family and I moved to Skokie, IL, a town we grew up in and around years prior — a suburb that’s considered one of the most diverse in the US. We were pregnant with our second child and despite our desire to stay in Chicago, we couldn’t find a house that was affordable, in good shape, provided a good commute with a decent local public school. We begrudgingly look towards surrounding suburbs and found our home in Skokie, with the hope of being around a diverse community with progressive ideals and a great school system.
Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, I found myself disgusted with the Village of Skokie’s mayor and Board of Trustees by their lack of response to the murder, the changes needed in the Skokie Police Department, and true commitment to representation and anti-racism. Skokie is famous for the KKK attempting to march through the village, at the time being a majority Jewish community, but now prides itself on “Hate Has No Home Here” and “Skokie Welcomes Everyone” yard signs and banners throughout. As I dug in more to the Village leadership and representation, I saw a one-party rule for 50+ years, a police department that pulled over, arrested and used force disproportionately with Black motorists and a small, but brewing right-wing hate group called Niles Township Accountability Coalition.
The hate group started mostly on social media, making posts on local Facebook parent groups and NextDoor, centered around police in schools, teaching antiracism and our nation’s history and children being indoctrinated in our school system by discussing gender identity and similar issues. I found a small group of like-minded community members who were outraged about this group making noise, particularly in the way they attacked Black and Brown residents who spoke about their lived experiences in the school system and in the village itself. Over the course of the last few years, especially during COVID, we battled this hate group on a number of fronts, whether social media, in school board public comments or various task forces. Over time, the hate group was kicked off out of local social media groups and refocused their efforts on electing school board and library board members, some of them trained by Awake and Moms for Liberty. To date, they’ve been able to take over one local K-8 school board but have made no headway in the other school districts, including the high schools.
This backstory is leading me to why I’m writing this story and why this issue has far-reaching implications for public school teachers around the country, as we see battle after battle with the far right and their obsession with “wokeness” has had a tremendous impact on how public schools teach history, develop inclusive curriculum and support students who identify as part of a marginalized group. Books are being banned, history is being distorted and altogether deleted from classrooms and we actively see the dehumanizing students who are non-white, non-Christian and/or part of the LGBTQIA community. If this case continues on a path in which the far right hate group leadership can attack public school teachers by name in public, including pressuring school districts to fire teachers that don’t align with their views, we’re going to see this entire movement move away from simply the curriculum and the school boards to doxxing and publicly vilifying individual teachers (we’ve already seen this).
We need ALL HANDS ON DECK to reach the initial goal of $38,000 to assist with paying Helen Levinson’s legal fees why the mutliple appeals go through the process. Below is the link again! Thank you DKos Community!
www.gofundme.com/...
From the GoFundMe:
What’s at Stake: Moms for Liberty and their extremist backers are attacking equity work in schools by targeting teachers themselves and threatening their jobs. We are raising money to support IL educator, Jasmine Sebaggala, in her legal battle to defend against attacks on her character and her job by
Helen Levinson, cook county chair of Moms for Liberty and vice president of Awake, IL. Levinson is receiving financial and legal backing from Stephen Miller’s far-right legal group America First Legal who
joined her legal team as co-counsel.
It is clear that the larger goal here is to set a precedent where teachers across the state can be threatened by extremists looking to remove protections for marginalized students and get away with it by claiming freedom of speech. Currently, in Illinois, the anti-SLAPP law defends this kind of free speech when used against a public figure (i.e. a citizen engaging their government). However, and of utmost importance, A TEACHER IS NOT A PUBLIC FIGURE. If teachers can be treated like public figures, this will eliminate protections from teachers on the front line of equity and anti-racism work in their schools. Ultimately, it threatens the safety of children and gives hate groups a free pass to funnel their resources into removing teachers who do not align with their far-right "values."
Currently, Ms. Sebaggala’s case is under appeal after being dismissed by a cook county judge who erroneously thinks that Ms. Sebaggala is a board member (she is not) and thus a public figure. If not overturned, this ruling sets a dangerous precedent and threatens teachers across the state who are often the only ones standing between marginalized students and hate.
By appealing this bad ruling and taking Ms. Sebaggala’s case to the appellate court level, we have the opportunity to set a crucial precedent to protect teachers in Illinois from such attacks by far-right groups in the future.
Just days ago, we learned today that the judge has ordered Jas to pay $38,000 to cover Helen's supposed lawyer fees. We knew this was possible because this judge is clearly upset that we're appealing his sloppy dismissal, but we had hoped the amount would be less and we'd have more time to fundraise. As it stands, we have 30 days from today to raise the money to "post bond" so that Jas doesn't have to deal with collection and we can move forward with this incredibly important appeal.
Ms. Sebaggala needs your support to cover continued legal fees that have thus far been covered by herself and a handful of supporters.
More Background: On August 31, 2021, Helen Levinson, chapter chair of Moms for Liberty of Cook County and vice president of Awake, IL, sent a letter of complaint to the employers of Jasmine Sebaggala, a Black educator in District 65 and a Skokie mom who is an active advocate for equity and anti-racism in Skokie school districts. After repeatedly attacking Ms. Sebaggala publicly on social media, including discussions of her teacher salary and allegations that Ms. Sebaggala must be abusing her white students (a common attack made by extremist, white supremacist groups to undermine equity work in schools), Ms. Levinson threatened Ms. Sebaggala’s livelihood by sending
this letter of complaint to the District 65 superintendent and union leadership, demanding that the letter be shared with the board of education, administration, and all district teachers and be permanently added to Ms. Sebaggala’s employee file.
As hate groups like Moms for Liberty and Awake, IL continue to intimidate teachers and school boards, threatening the safety of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students, activists and teachers like Ms. Sebaggala are paying the price for having the courage to stand against them. In their recent report: “
A Year in Hate and Extremism,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said of the group: “Moms for Liberty and its nationwide chapters combat what they consider the “woke indoctrination” of children by advocating for book bans in school libraries and endorsing candidates for public office that align with the group's views. They also use their multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.”
In Skokie, Ms. Levinson has leveraged her involvement in Moms For Liberty and Awake, IL to influence local school board elections and repeatedly target teachers and community advocates for equity. She has also used these ties to support her ongoing attack on Ms. Sebaggala, a local Black teacher, mother, and social justice advocate. Without justice for Ms. Sebaggala, Ms. Levinson will only be further emboldened in pushing her extremist agenda in Skokie and Illinois. More alarmingly, it is clear that the involvement of Stephen Miller’s legal group is motivated by an ambition to make equity-oriented teachers easy targets by expanding anti-SLAAP laws in Illinois to include them.