Education

Minneapolis Public Schools To Fire White Teachers First Thanks To Teachers Union

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Chrissy Clark Contributor
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A contract between a Minneapolis public school district and teachers’ union calls for white teachers to be fired before minority teachers, according to the contract obtained by the Daily Caller.

On March 25, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and the Minneapolis Public Schools struck a deal to end a 14-day union strike. The deal included a bargaining agreement for various proposals, including one that fires educators based on their race, according to AlphaNews.

“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” the contract reads.

Minority teachers may also be “exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order” and given priority reinstatement, according to the contract.

The contract attempts to protect teachers at 15 “racially isolated schools” from layoffs. These schools house the “greatest concentration of poverty” within the district.

The race-based firing process is intended to make up for “past discrimination by the District disproportionately [impacting] the hiring of underrepresented teachers in the District, as compared to the relevant labor market and the community.” This disparity “resulted in a lack of diversity of teachers,” according to the contract.

Minneapolis Public Schools are racially and ethnically diverse, according to data from U.S. News. Thirty-seven percent of students are white, 33% are black, and 17% are Hispanic.

The same data finds that the graduation rate among Minneapolis Public School students is approximately 53%.

Minneapolis Public Schools spokeswoman Crystina Lugo-Beach reiterated to the Daily Caller that the contract was crafted to “remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination.”

“Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and the community served by the school district,” Lugo-Beach said.

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.