Education

Teachers Unions Have Collectively Bargained Woke Policies Into The Classroom, Report Shows

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Reagan Reese Contributor
Font Size:

Teachers unions used collective bargaining negotiations to push discrimination and anti-racism efforts, according to a report by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI).

Across the county, teachers unions have agreed to contracts with school districts that include hiring practices that protect educators of color and mandatory anti-racism initiatives, according to the DFI report. A contract in Minnesota mandated that school districts fire white educators first, while a contract in Detroit created a “School Equity Lead Supplemental Position” that required candidates complete the anti-racism training. (RELATED: The Largest Teachers Union Is Offering A ’Race-Based Trauma’ Training Course)

“Teacher unions no longer resemble the teachers that they supposedly represent but are now political creatures that perpetuate themselves by feeding on teacher salaries and special privileges from states and school systems,” Paul Zimmerman, the author of the report, said in a press release. “Teachers stand to lose, and lose big, from union-imposed straitjackets dictating their teaching style, narrowing the permissible approaches to classroom discipline, and requiring their attendance at tedious trainings that aim to turn them and their students into ‘anti-racist’ social justice warriors.”

In March, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) agreed to a contract with Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) to end a two-week strike that originated over teacher pay and class size. After the school district admitted to past “systemic racism,” the contract included a provision titled “Protections for Educators of Color” which calls for white teachers to be fired before minority teachers.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) settled a contract with Detroit Public Schools Community District that created a “School Equity Lead Supplemental Position” to support and facilitate “culturally responsive teaching strategies for teachers.” Candidates for the position are selected by the district’s office of equity, advocacy and civil rights and must complete anti-racism training at the “Summer Anti-Racist Institute,” the contract showed.

An agreement between Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Education Association (SEA) prioritizes discriminatory hiring practices; the district is to focus on the hiring, supporting and retaining of “educators of color” under the contract. When making teacher layoffs, the district must “retain a workforce that includes racial, gender, linguistic and equity literate educators,” according to the contract.

“Learning conditions are optimized when there is a powerful body of educators that reflect the experiences of students,” Tim Robinson, media relations lead for Seattle Public Schools, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ivy Bailey, interim President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, participates in a Detroit teachers sick-out, the second in the past two days, and protests in front of Detroit Public Schools headquarters, May 3, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan. The sick-out forced the closing of 94 of 97 Detroit school districts today. The teachers are looking for a guarantee that they will be paid for the work they perform. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Ivy Bailey, interim President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, participates in a Detroit teachers sick-out, the second in the past two days, and protests in front of Detroit Public Schools headquarters, May 3, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan.(Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Seattle Public Schools and SEA also have an agreement that required training on “hiring educators of color” through targeted interview strategies and job fairs. The school district’s department of racial equity advancement and the union’s center for racial equity met to address how to handle “microaggressions and other forms of identity-based harm” within the school district, according to the contract.

“Teacher unions know their woke policies are unpopular, so they bury their political wish lists in collective bargaining agreements in the hope that parents won’t notice,” Bob Eitel, DFI President, told the DCNF. “Transparency is the answer: Every parent should be aware of what ridiculous demands their local teacher union has forced on schools. Teachers should also think long and hard about whether they want to continue paying dues to unions that force racist hiring policies on them and limit their ability to maintain order and safety in the classroom.”

The DFI, MPS, MFT, DFT, SEA and the Detroit Public Schools Community District did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel