A third-grade teacher in Orange, New Jersey, has been fired a month after she was suspended for letting her students write get-well cards to imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. Marilyn Zuniga said her students wanted to send letters to Abu-Jamal after she shared one of his quotations with them and later told them he was ill. Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer, but Amnesty International has said he was deprived of a fair trial. Zuniga’s firing comes after she received a wave of support from educators across the country — and from her own students, including eight-year-old Cashmere Jones.

Cashmere Jones: “She has been a great teacher to me and all the other classmates, and they all really want to see her again.”