Forum: A Lesson On Justice and Its Indivisibility

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” – Martin Luther King in Birmingham jail, 1963

Our right to advocate for justice via our constitutionally guaranteed free speech is under attack by those who use false charges of anti-Semitism to mask their own unwillingness to address the human rights emergency that has intensified in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza for the past 70 years.

Angela Davis is a human rights scholar-activist and icon of the American civil rights movement. This month, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) announced that it was canceling its intent to honor Birmingham native Professor Davis with the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award. Davis is part of a growing lineup of African Americans who are being censured for connecting the liberation struggle of African Americans with that of Palestinians.

Davis’ lifelong work is globally recognized.But her advocacy for human rights for Palestinians apparently negated her qualifications for receiving the award. The BCRI decision was driven by complaints by some Jewish organizations in Birmingham.

Davis said the BCRI’s decision is “not primarily an attack against me but rather against the spirit of the indivisibility of justice”.

Marc Lamont Hill is a tenured professor of media studies at Temple University and was a political commentator on CNN. In November remarks at a U.N. International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People meeting, Hill said, “we must advocate and promote non-violence,” and added “we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing.” He called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” words and concept used by Zionists, without censure, since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. CNN reacted to his remarks by firing him from his position at CNN.

Esther Koontz has been a Kansas public school math teacher for 9 years and statewide teacher-trainer. Koontz was fired from her position when she refused to sign a formal declaration certifying that she does not participate in a boycott of Israel, as dictated by Kansas law. Koontz said that she could not sign the form in good conscience. A U.S. District Court has now ruled that the Kansas law imposed “a plainly unconstitutional choice” on state contractors.

Bahia Amawi is a Texas speech pathologist who has worked with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas for the last 9 years. Amawi was fired because she refused to sign a pledge that she will not engage in any action to limit commercial relations with any entity doing business in Israel or in an Israel-controlled territory. She and the ACLU have sued the state of Texas.

Twenty-five states now have laws which require individuals and/or businesses in a relationship with the state to sign a pledge that they will not engage in any boycott related to Israel or its illegal settlements. The U.S. Congress is considering similar legislation. Both the existing state laws and the proposed federal legislation have a chilling effect on free speech and are unconstitutional.

In working for the “indivisibility of justice”, Angela Davis and Marc Lamont Hill and so many others give life to Dr. King’s eloquent words.

Read the article online here.