BUZZ
Another goes on two-month hiatus to ‘rest, process, and decompress’
The revelation that white Philadelphia teacher Hannah Gann isn’t actually black and Palestinian has led to the dissolution of one teacher organization and the “hiatus” of another.
A couple of weeks ago the Workshop School’s Gann confessed to, and apologized for, her bogus heritage, but added she “still believes in every cause [she] ever supported, in the ongoing fight for justice and in the righteousness of liberation for all oppressed peoples.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week that “after much reflection” the group Philly Educators for Palestine decided to split up as a result of Gann’s hoax. The group had been created in 2024 following a “teach-in” about the situation in Gaza, with Gann as a “charter” member.
In addition, the Racial Justice Organizing Committee announced on Instagram it was going on a “two-month hiatus” in order to “rest, process, and decompress.”
The RJOC also noted that “while [Philly Educators for Palestine] is coming to an end, the work does not […] Palestinians are still suffering. Sudan still bleeds. ICE is still separating families.”
The RJOC Instagram account still currently features a late-August advertisement for the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America workshop “Weaponizing Antisemitism: An Interactive History.”
The workshop’s description claims “pro-Israel watchdogs are weaponizing antisemitism to attack organizers, students, educators, [and] public schools,” and that “the collapse of the Zionist consensus has accelerated its use as a tool of repression.”
It was led by Adam Sanchez, managing editor of the far-left Rethinking Schools.
Members of both Philly Educators for Palestine and the RJOC said Gann “deserved consequences from her employer for her actions.” A former “organizer” colleague of Gann who wished to remain anonymous told the Inquirer she was “furious” at the damage wrought by Gann’s deception, and agrees with those who want her terminated.
“She has moments when she tries to ask extra Black, like cosplaying Black,” the organizer said, adding that Gann “often wore African print clothing and large earrings, and used African American Vernacular English.”
Gann also “glossed over” the fact she attended an Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania, according to the organizer.
“She was trying to get my perspective as a Black woman, and she was white that whole time,” the organizer said. “It was disgusting. The emotional labor that she has utilized from me is so unbelievable — I can never get that time back, I can never get that trust back. I will never speak to her again in my life.”
MORE: Six white female academics have posed as scholars of color in recent years
