“It starts with the keffiyehs, and ends with the pride flags,” said Dr. Akiva Leibowitz during an interview with Sampan last week. A Brookline resident who has seen firsthand how even his neighbors could attack free speech, the parent was talking about the crackdowns of freedom of expression at every level of society over the past year and a half.

Leibowitz, a critical care anesthesiologist, was just weeks earlier vying for a seat in the crowded race for Brookline’s school committee. Despite taking a loss this time around, Leibowitz remains an advocate of free speech and letting teachers do their job, and his concerns about the future of educational freedoms are stronger than ever.

Indeed Leibowitz is well aware of the Trump Administration’s tsunami of orders and policies meant to crack down on schools and universities, international students, gender rights, and diversity initiatives. But he’s also well aware of the persistent and powerful political undercurrent in his town and neighboring areas like Newton — long believed to be some of the most liberal centers in the nation — that threatens to cast some minority voices out to sea, and, quite literally, drown them.

In those towns and beyond, for example, a small group of parents and other community members have quietly tried to suppress or vilify or both the speech of students, recent graduates, and even school teachers — some of whom have been aggressively doxed online — over their empathy for Palestinians and even for benign statements about the Middle East. When the school district’s outgoing superintendent penned a letter to the district over the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, town leaders and politicians publicly criticized that draft. Earlier this school year, a high school diversity event was attacked by parents who claimed without evidence that it would be anti-Semitic.* In Newton, a photo exhibit exploring the Nakba of 1948 with images that could hardly be called provocative was overwhelmed with protesters who denounced the entire event as hateful to Jewish people. Those were just a few examples.

“It’s reached absurd levels,” said Leibowitz, who is from Israel and is himself Jewish. He told of a recent exhibit at an elementary school in Newton to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month that was also shutdown merely because it included a reference to the Palestinian dialect of Arabic.

Leibowitz fears much of the canceling of pro-Palestinian voices will now worsen with the new presidential administration.

He warned, “The elementary schools are next.”

Trump signed an executive order purporting to combat antisemitism in January that in part called for an inventory and an analysis of “anti-Semitic” complaints in classrooms as early as kindergarten.

But the doctor also worries that the smothering of voices of Palestinian Americans, and other Arab Americans, will soon extend to any opinions that are not aligned with Pres. Trump’s agenda or of others in power. This could include the voices of minority groups and gay and transgender people, he said.

“These are tough topics. You don’t have to agree with them,” he said, “but you have to let educators do their job.”

Saying that he would readily “fight for the freedom of speech” that even he doesn’t agree with, Leibowitz said his views have been shaped in part by his work on a collaborative Israeli-Palestinian school called Hagar, before coming to the U.S. A key reason he ran for the school committee seat is because teachers and schools can’t effectively operate in a state of fear — whether it’s the kind of fear pushed during the Congressional hearings last year over universities’ and colleges’ handling of student protests; the fear overcoming international students — like Rümeysa Öztürk — or immigrants like — Mahmoud Khalil — of getting detained for exercising free speech; or the fear of getting doxed or shutdown for presenting what would normally be considered an objective, informational exhibit.

“This is a great example,” he said of what happened recently in Newton, “of the dangers harbored in gross handling of such issues by authorities, elected officials, political activists (and) advocacy groups. Let the educators teach. They have a voice.”

Despite losing his bid for the school committee seat, he said, he feels that parents and others can advocate for free speech and their schools by “demanding a seat at the table,” and showing up to school meetings and speaking out.

After all, he said, suppression of speech often happens in small steps, over time. He added: Just because someone enjoys a freedom or privilege today doesn’t mean that very right or privilege won’t come under attack tomorrow.

Instead of waiting until once enjoyed rights disappear, Leibowitz urged, “it’s easier to stop this up front.”

* Editor’s note: This line was edited after publication online to reflect that based on earlier Sampan reporting, we believe there was no basis that the presentation referred to was anti-Semitic.