A Round Rock speech pathologist is suing the school district she once worked with, saying a contract amendment that forced her resignation is unconstitutional.

Bahia Amawi had contracted with Pflugerville ISD to provide bilingual language pathology services and speech therapy for children under 5 since 2009. But in August, her contract renewal came with a new clause demanding that she not boycott Israel.

In a lawsuit filed against the district and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Amawi says the clause violates her First and 14th Amendment rights.

Texas passed a law in 2017 that forbids governmental agencies — including public schools — from contracting with any company that doesn't agree to the clause. It's one of 26 states that have enacted similar legislation.

"It's baffling that they can ... decide to protect another country's economy vs. protect our constitutional rights," Amawi told The Intercept.

The law defines boycotting as "refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory."

When Amawi said she couldn't agree to the clause, district officials told her she could cross the section out, according to the lawsuit. When they called her back to say they couldn't work with anyone who didn't accept the clause, she parted ways with the district. The district no longer has a specialist with a background in Arabic, she said.

"The point of boycotting any products that support Israel is to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its treatment, the inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people." Amawi told The Intercept. "Having grown up as a Palestinian, I know firsthand the oppression and the struggle that Palestinians face on a daily basis."

She is asking the court to declare the law unconstitutional and order the district to offer her a contract without the clause.

"Speech and advocacy related to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a core political speech on a matter of public concern entitled to the highest levels of constitutional protection," the lawsuit says.

Dickinson residents faced a similar situation when they were asked last year to sign such a clause in their applications for relief grants to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey. The City Council later voted to lift the requirement for homeowners, but not businesses.

Gov. Greg Abbott told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted legislators to approve a ban on similar boycotts in 2016, and he said in 2017 that "any anti-Israel policy is an anti-Texas policy."

"In a clash between the policy preferences of a foreign country and the rights of an American citizen, we believe the state of Texas should side on the rights of the American citizen," CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas said.