LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — For Rancho High School social studies teacher Reuben D'Silva, it was a history lesson come to life.
Students spontaneously leaving class to march in front of their school, protesting the killing of two people in Minneapolis by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
WATCH| Steve Sebelius talks to the Chair of Mom's For Liberty over teacher's video
The issue was already raw, after federal agents recently picked up an undocumented immigrant near Rancho during student pick-up time, unnerving students.
D'Silva — who is also a member of the Nevada Assembly, first elected in 2022 — thought it was history coming alive in real time.
"I am just so proud of all the young people, the students today, who participated in the walkouts, who participated in the protests," D'Silva said in a video posted to Instagram. "And as a government teacher, a civics teacher, a social studies teacher myself, this is exactly what we want to do. We strive every day in these classrooms. trying to get information over to the kids, trying to educate our young people, to get them ready for participatory democracy."
But D'Silva's praise for student activism wasn't appreciated by the conservative group Moms for Liberty, which called on its members to complain about D'Silva to the Clark County School District, the state Ethics Commission and the Legislature.
"Assemblyman Reuben D'Silva, who also works as a social studies teacher at Rancho High School, used classroom time and his position over students to push them to walk out of class for a political protest," a Moms for Liberty bulletin reads. "He then recorded and shared a video from inside a CCSD classroom praising the walkout and minimizing it as 'missing an hour or so of class.' This is not neutral education. It is political activism on taxpayer time, using our children as the audience."
D'Silva, however, says he never discussed ICE, the Minnesota shootings or walking out with his students. He also recorded the video after school hours, without students present.
But for Moms for Liberty, the praise itself was considered encouragement to ditch class. The group's Clark County chair, Yadusha Jones, told Channel 13 D'Silva's comments were inappropriate.
"The biggest issue is he's using the classroom setting to encourage children to protest when [he] should be educating," Jones said. "As an Assembly member and a teacher and as an adult, he should know better. He's choosing to use his own personal feelings to push a political agenda."
Jones said the students don't understand the ICE issue and couldn't do anything about it if they wanted to, since they cannot vote. She said the protest was not about the First Amendment, but about disruption.
Members of the group have shown up at public meetings to criticize D'Silva. and the group has called on him to resign or be fired from the district.
"He should not be a teacher," Jones said. "He should either be a teacher and be neutral, or be an Assembly person and be political, but you can't be both. He doesn't know how to separate the hats. Some people can, and you could see that in how they run their lifestyle, but it's clear that he does not know how to separate politics from education, because if he did it, his video would have been entirely different."
D'Silva makes no apologizes for the video, and stands by his comments. "As a civics teacher, a social studies teacher, as a history teacher, you want to see your kids wanting to participate in the democratic process," he says.
But he sees a less pure motive on behalf of Moms for Liberty.
"I felt that this ploy of Moms for Liberty was really to muzzle teachers, to really get out there and to intimidate teachers from expressing viewpoints, not in the classroom, but outside of the class time," he said. "I think we should be able to freely express our views on the happenings of our community, for sure, because politics follows these students into our schools."
The Clark County School District told Channel 13 in a statement that it was aware of the controversy and that D'Silva was still assigned as a teacher at Rancho. D'Silva, for his part, says he has not received any discipline and is still at work.
Asked how he'd react if his students left class to protest in favor of ICE and President Donald Trump's stepped-up push to deport undocumented immigrants, D'Silva said he'd be just as proud.
"Of course I would," he said. "As long as I see students exercising their right to expression and taking the actual amount of energy that it needs to get them out there, to participate in democracy. I'd love it. You know, it's hard enough to get students to take notes these days, to be active in the classroom. But to see that actually participating physically and so passionately in our democracy, it's a beautiful day. Whether I agree with it or not, I would always support it."
