A “DEI teacher” and “team leader” at the Montgomery County, Maryland, public schools outside of D.C. has defended Hamas and pushed a frenzy of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in recent weeks.
Sabrina Khan-Williams, the “team leader/diversity, equity & inclusion teacher” in the World Studies department of Tilden Middle School, contends in social media posts that Hamas’ paragliding attack on a rave was a hoax.
“Debunked!! No music festival attack. Babies were not burned. Women were not violated,” she wrote on Facebook.
The world history teacher shared videos from conspiracy theorists and opinion columns from Arab media and took them as fact, vouching for one video that depicted Jews as killing Palestinians in order to cut their organs out and sell them.
“Palestinian’s [sic] are being killed and their organs are being sold,” wrote Khan-Williams, who teaches in Bethesda, Maryland, which has a significant Jewish population.
“Hamas did not start this. They were just the perfect vehicle for Zionists to continue its apartheid,” she wrote, sharing a video that claimed that “a lot of Palestinians do get killed when they try to peacefully protest in Israel.”
“In American history, enslaved persons were fed a basic diet of pork fat and corn meal… Someone, please tell me how this is any different?” she said, sharing a video that said Hamas tunnels exist to bring school supplies to children.
“You can’t be a democracy if you do this to your settler colonies,” she wrote atop a video idolizing a girl who punched an Israeli soldier in the face.
“If this was about the hostages, [Israel] would have immediately accepted the ceasefire. Just saying,” she wrote, also sharing a video saying “you are not a good human being” if you support Israel’s actions.
Another video she shared said “the U.S. loves genocide,” and included a propaganda video of a man singing that a Palestinian was “murdered in cold blood / poor young soul all he knew was love / the whole world goes blind and turns to silence / while I’m saying free Palestine from the tyrants.”
“My heart breaks for these Muslim and Christian Palestinians. I am so sorry that this slaughter will one day be in our history books and be seen as another catastrophe caused by colonization on indigenous people,” Khan-Williams wrote.
Khan-Williams, in fact, was in charge of teaching that history.
In a back-to-school-night video for her previous school, Argyle Middle School, she said she would teach “the way that all of Latin America really work together and really analyzing these native American groups” and “cultural diffusion through the lens of ancient civilizations of Africa, then the last unit is global interactions where we look at all the different explorers, we touch base on the Columbian exchange as well as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Moving on from there, a couple guidelines and expectations: respect and understanding, having students understand that this is a safe space,” she said.
Khan-Williams did not answer a phone call.
Christopher Cram, a spokesman for MCPS, would not explain what the role of a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Teacher” was, or how “inclusion” could encompass Khan-Williams’ comments. He did not condemn the rhetoric, and said parents and residents shouldn’t expect to hear any more on the issue.
“Per MCPS protocols, this matter will be investigated. Still, any actions as a result of that investigation would be considered a personnel matter, and further comments would violate employee privacy,” he told The Daily Wire.
On November 9, another Montgomery County school, Clarksburg High School, approved an anti-Israel demonstration on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and emailed parents to let them know of the opportunity to join the protest. It was “approved by school leadership” and “Absences due to the participation in the walk-out will be excused,” Principal Edward Owusu wrote.