Across the country, federal immigration agents are targeting students, families, patients and entire communities. The recent killings of U.S. citizens and cruel actions taken against children in Minnesota make it clear that this is about this administration’s intimidation, not an immigration policy debate.
This administration rescinded long-standing guidance on protected sensitive locations that previously limited immigration enforcement actions in places such as schools, hospitals and houses of worship, spaces that must remain centers of learning, healing and refuge.
The erosion of these protections, combined with an intensified deportation and enforcement agenda, is fueling fear, destabilizing classrooms, deterring families from seeking medical care, and undermining trust in essential public institutions.
This webinar will examine the current state of immigration enforcement, the implications of these policy shifts, and what they mean in practice for educators, healthcare workers, students and families. It will also highlight the AFT’s response and resources, and showcase how our locals are showing up at this moment to keep schools, healthcare facilities and community spaces free from immigration enforcement, fear and trauma.
I’ll be on the call along with AFT Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and expert speakers from the AFT, AFL-CIO, American Civil Liberties Union, League of United Latin American Citizens, Make the Road New York, Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, and Professional Staff Congress. It’s an incredible lineup of speakers.
We’re looking forward to discussing what we can do to ensure that schools, hospitals and communities are places of care, not fear.
WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten released the following statement in response to the targeting of educators in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk:
“Acts of violence and hate must be condemned, always. They are antithetical to democracy and the values we try to instill as teachers.
“Last week, anyone with a social media feed—including children—witnessed a devastating tragedy, a horrific act of political violence, that has traumatized the nation. Since then, teachers and many others we represent across the country have tried to deal with the effects of that trauma as it is playing out in classrooms, campuses, caregiving sites and other settings.
“Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and former presidents rightly recognized this moment as an inflection point, a time not just to denounce the Kirk killing as the political violence that it was, but to find a way to come together and to de-escalate.
“The current administration, unfortunately, has not. And some are weaponizing this moment.
“Of course, no one should celebrate another person’s murder. But using this tragedy to encourage the doxxing, censorship and firing of people for their opinions—including educators’ private opinions shared during their personal time—is wrong.
“Conservatives, too, are warning against going down this dangerous road. They know this sends the absolute wrong message to chill speech—one of the most important freedoms in our country.
“Americans must be able to exercise their First Amendment rights in their personal lives, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with them. None of us who values freedom should ever want to relinquish that right.
“We once again are calling for an end to the hate and the smears. We must find ways to tone down the rhetoric and disagree civilly.
“As the framers envisioned, education is the path to civil debate and open inquiry—and teachers promote these founding principles of our nation every day in their classrooms.
“Let’s recognize the hard work they do, particularly in the wake of this tragedy and so many others we’ve faced as a nation, to assuage students’ trauma and create safe and welcoming environments where every student can succeed.
“Let’s denounce political violence, find that exit ramp, find ways to de-escalate—and let’s do it without eroding constitutional rights.”
# # # #
The AFT represents 1.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.
See Also; Choosing Democracy: A Practical Guide to Multicultural Education. 4th. edition. 201o. Allyn and Bacon. by Duane Campbell Used copies on the web very low priced.
NEW YORK– The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the AFT today sued the Trump administration on behalf of their members for unlawfully cutting off $400 million in federal funding for crucial public health research to force Columbia University to surrender its academic independence. While the Trump administration has been slashing funding since its first days in office, this move represents a stunning new tactic: using cuts as a cudgel to coerce a private institution to adopt restrictive speech codes and allow government control over teaching and learning.
The plaintiffs, who represent members of Columbia University faculty in both the humanities and sciences, allege that this coercive tactic not only undermines academic independence, but stops vital scientific research that contributes to the health and prosperity of all Americans. The terminated grants supported research on urgent issues, including Alzheimer’s disease prevention, fetal health in pregnant women, and cancer research.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented demands, and threats of similar actions against 60 universities, have created instability and a deep chilling effect on college campuses across the country. Although the administration claims to be acting to combat antisemitism under its authority to prevent discrimination, it has completely disregarded the requirements of Title VI, the statute that provides it with that authority–requirements that exist to prevent the government from exercising too much unfettered control over funding recipients. According to the complaint, the cancellation of federal funds also violates the First Amendment, the separation of powers, and other constitutional provisions.
“The Trump administration’s threats and coercion at Columbia are part of a clear authoritarian playbook meant to crush academic freedom and critical research in American higher education. Faculty, students, and the American public will not stand for it. The repercussions extend far beyond the walls of the academy. Our constitutional rights, and the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to live in a democracy are on the line,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP.
“President Trump has taken a hatchet to American ingenuity, imagination and invention at Columbia to attack academic freedom and force compliance with his political views,” saidAFT President Randi Weingarten. “Let’s be clear: the administration should tackle legitimate issues of discrimination. But this modern-day McCarthyism is not just an illegal attack on our nation’s deeply held free speech and due process rights, it creates a chilling effect that hinders the pursuit of knowledge—the core purpose of our colleges and universities. Today, we reject this bullying and resolve to challenge the administration’s edicts until they are rescinded.”
“We’re seeing university leadership across the country failing to take any action to counter the Trump administration’s unlawful assault on academic freedom,” said Reinhold Martin, president of Columbia-AAUP and professor of architecture. “As faculty, we don’t have the luxury of inaction. The integrity of civic discourse and the freedoms that form the basis of a democratic society are under attack. We have to stand up.”
The complaint alleges that the Trump administration’s broad punitive tactics are indicative of an attempt to consolidate power over higher education broadly. According to the complaint, the administration is simultaneously threatening other universities with similar punishment in order to chill dissent on specific topics and speech with which the administration disagrees. Trump administration officials have spoken publicly about their plans to “bankrupt these universities” if they don’t “play ball.”
Universities have historically been engines of innovation in critical fields like technology, national security, and medical treatments. Cuts to that research will ultimately harm the health, prosperity and security of all Americans.
“Columbia is the testing ground for the Trump administration’s tactic to force universities to yield to its control,” said Orion Danjuma, counsel at Protect Democracy. “We are bringing this lawsuit to protect higher education from unlawful government censorship and political repression.”
The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York and names as defendants the government agencies that cut Columbia’s funding on March 7 and signed the March 13 letter to Columbia laying out the government's demands required to restore the funding, including the Department of Justice, Department of Education, Health and Human Services and General Services Administration. The plaintiffs are represented by Protect Democracy and Altshuler Berzon LLP.
JD Vance is "disturbed" by teachers without children.1
Trump just presented a keynote address for Moms for Liberty—an extremist Project 2025 hate group focused on undermining public education and banning books in schools.2
It's clear to us and the public: Donald Trump and JD Vance simply despise teachers and educators.
If you, like most people, respect our educators, have fond memories of your childhood teachers, or have educators in your family—or maybe you are one yourself—you know that we have to fight back against Trump's Project 2025 plans to derail our education system entirely.
That's why MoveOn and the nation's two biggest organizations of educators and teachers—the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the National Education Association (NEA)—are hosting an "Educators for Harris" call to make it clear to the public that teachers and educators matter now, more than ever—and who controls the White House in 2025 will be critical to the futures of educators, our schools, our students, and our families all across the country.
Teachers and educators have been some of the top contributors to the Harris-Walz campaign, because they recognize the high stakes of this election for our education system.3 They have faced right-wing attacks directly—from efforts to privatize our schools, to the relentless book bans, to the efforts to demonize what educators can and cannot teach about our shared history. Educators and teachers, and so many others, have too much to lose in the event of a Trump-Vance administration. There's too much at stake in this election for any of us to sit on the sidelines.
It’s not too late to preserve American democracy—yet
by Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers
Let’s start with a thought experiment: A candidate for president is asked to reassure voters that he has no plans to abuse his power, break the law or use the government to go after people. The answer is a no-brainer, right? Of course, this isn’t a thought experiment; it’s the exact question Fox News host Sean Hannity recently posed to Donald Trump, to which Trump replied that he would be a “dictator,” but only on “day one.” Many in his party shrugged off the statement or dismissed it as a joke. Americans may be desensitized to Trump’s words, even when he says he would be a dictator, given the maelstrom of shocking statements he makes. But he has doubled down on this troubling declaration—the latest in a pattern of his authoritarian leanings.
Weingarten, center, with voters in Pittsburgh at an AFT Votes event on Nov. 2, 2022.
Trump has talked about suspending the United States Constitution, invoking the Insurrection Act to mobilize the U.S. armed forces to suppress legitimate protests, weaponizing the government to retaliate against his political enemies, bringing treason charges against news organizations, and vowing to be the MAGA movement’s “retribution.” So we have no choice but to take him at his word.
Trump has a pressing motivation—beyond vengeance or grievance—to put himself above the law: self-protection. He faces 91 felony counts in four criminal cases in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington, which carry a total of roughly 700 years in jail time if convicted. And a $250 million civil fraud case in New York threatens his business empire.
In a second term, Trump would have a better understanding of how to overcome the institutional safeguards against his corrupt intentions, including, presumably, stopping all federal and state cases against him. Whereas he previously was restrained by officials who put the rule of law and the good of the country above fealty to the president, plans are being laid to stack the government with loyalists, hardliners, sycophants and willing enablers should he return to office.
Last month, Trump echoed language used by dictators, comparing his political opponents to “vermin.” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, notes that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
Similarly, he understands how to exert control through fear of violence. Sen. Mitt Romney and former Rep. Liz Cheney have both said that Republican colleagues told them they wanted to vote against Trump in the Jan. 6 impeachment trial but did not because of fear for their and their families’ safety.
Such fears are understandable. Just consider the type of content Trump posts on his Truth Social platform. In a message attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump wrote, “He has a DEATH WISH,” which many viewed as a threat. Trump also shared a message of a supporter encouraging violence on Trump’s behalf; the supporter wrote that he would “physically fight for [Trump]” and “we Are Locked and LOADED.” Numerous prosecutors, lawyers and judges in cases involving Trump have received death threats after Trump railed against them.
As 2023 closes, I would have loved to devote this column to looking back on the year. No doubt there is division and anxiety in the country, but there is so much good as well. The AFT has given out 9.8 million books to children, families and educators through the AFT’s Reading Opens the World campaign and our partnership with First Book. Our Real Solutions for Kids and Communities campaign is taking on learning loss, loneliness and literacy challenges by pressing for solutions like wraparound services, community schools, the science of reading approach and hands-on learning. Our Code Red campaign is helping to secure safe patient limits and support health professionals. And our work to help AFT members reduce or eliminate their student debt is on track to provide nearly $400 million in savings for our members.
The AFT is focused on helping people thrive—that’s the purpose of the labor movement and of public education. But for working people and our families, for people not born to wealth or power, the ability to thrive depends on pluralism and democracy. That’s why, as a union leader, a social studies teacher and an American, I feel compelled to sound this alarm and commit to doing everything I can to safeguard democracy against the gravest threat since the Civil War. The next presidential election is less than a year away. If Trump is the Republican nominee, the election will become an existential referendum on whether the United States will remain a democracy or risks becoming a dictatorship. It is not yet too late.
This antagonism toward unions and worker power is out of step with most Americans. Newpolling for the AFL-CIOshows historic support for unions across party lines, with especially strong support from young Americans. Navigator Research finds that most Americans view teachers unions favorably, including majorities of both parents and nonparents. And more than 50 groups of workers havejoined the American Federation of Teachersso far this year—a pace unseen in decades. America knows: It’s better in a union.
At a time when so many forces are spreading fear and division, unions literally unite people. In the face of fear, we have hope. In the face of despair, we have dreams. In the face of silence, we tell our stories. In the face of smears, we offer solutions. We bring people together to be the most powerful we can be.
The AFT is the home of the people who make a difference in other people’s lives. We offer real solutions for kids and communities. We address hard issues like learning loss, loneliness and literacy challenges. We take on the extremists who want to defund public services, dismantle our democracy, destroy public education and demonize the vulnerable, and the corporations that are more concerned about healthcare profits than patients. And we encourage our members to vote so we have leaders who share and fight for our values.
We have each other’s backs—whether it’s winning safe healthcare staffing levels, as we just did in Oregon, or defending educators’ obligation to teach honest history, as we are doing in New Hampshire. We’re there to help with our free trauma counseling benefit for members, and with the 9 million free books and other resources we have distributed to spark the love of reading. And we have helped members save millions of dollars in student debt, freeing them to buy a home, start a family or buy a car. This is what unions do: We care, we fight and we show up.
This Labor Day, let’s recommit to helping working people and their families gain a better life. Whether it’s members of the United Auto Workers or the Writers Guild of America; workers at Starbucks, Amazon or Apple; or you and your fellow members of the AFT—together we can accomplish things that would be impossible on our own.
Thank you for making a difference in the lives of others, and thank you for being a member of our union. We wish you a wonderful Labor Day.
In this season of miracles for many faith traditions, Veronica Rubio, a middle school librarian in Pico Rivera, Calif., felt like she was experiencing a miracle of her own as she selected free books for her students—young adult fiction, Spanish language titles and Star Wars-themed books—at an AFT Reading Opens the World event last weekend. “It’s like a dream,” Rubio said. “I don’t want to wake up.”
In many ways, that book giveaway was the fulfillment of one dream and the start of another. This time last year, the AFT pledged to distribute 1 million free books to educators, students and their families to promote the joy of reading as part of our Reading Opens the World campaign. We gave away the 1 millionth book in Pico Rivera—and announced that our union will give away another 1 million books to continue to work toward creating a nation of joyful and confident readers.
Amid an alarming rise in efforts to ban and censor books, we are giving away books that are both mirrors and windows—titles that reflect students’ own identities and experiences, introduce them to the experiences of others, and inspire them with compelling stories and characters. Our goal is for students to love to read and to read well.
The challenge of helping all children read well has been exacerbated by misunderstandings of the science of reading, by conflicts over the best way to teach students to read and, recently, by the pandemic. The AFT has worked to improve reading instruction with research-based reading resources and courses that have helped tens of thousands of educators teach reading more effectively.
But it all starts with books and the joy that comes from kids having books of their own that they are excited to read. I will never forget a visit to McDowell County, W.Va., one of the poorest counties in the United States. I offered a book to a boy who clutched it to his chest, grinned and said, “I’m going straight home to put this in my library.” I asked him what other books he had in his library. Bubbling with excitement, he said, “This is the first one!”
And then there was Rafi, a student I met as we distributed books to schools in Puerto Rico. We took turns reading a bilingual book about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. As I read in English and he read in Spanish, we acted out the words, smiling and laughing with each other, connected by a story.
Our book distributions are as varied as the books themselves. AFT members distributed free books at back-to-school events in Scranton and Syracuse, Nashua and New Haven, Lynn and Lowell, and many more places. The Detroit Federation of Teachers gave out 10,000 books by African American authors at a Juneteenth event. The Montana Federation of Public Employees distributed books at tribal schools. In New York, the AFT and the Public Employees Federation donated $5,000 worth of books to the Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Center. The AFT and the United Federation of Teachers have hosted book events throughout New York City’s boroughs, with lines often snaking for blocks. And our events in Yonkers and Albany featured both books and bouncy houses. All these events offer fun and research-based tips for families to support literacy.
This weekend alone, the AFT distributed 120,000 books, including as we helped launch the Cleveland Reads Citywide Reading Challenge to collectively read 1 million books and/or 1 million minutes in 2023.
I am so grateful for the work AFT members do to heal, help, educate and make a difference in people’s lives. And I am angered by the baseless attacks they endure, particularly the attacks on educators, who have risen to the overwhelming challenges of teaching during the pandemic and meeting students’ surging needs. The truth about teachers stands in stark contrast to critics who denigrate them and blame teachers and their unions for a pandemic and other factors outside their control—yet do nothing to help.
The last few years have been hard on everyone. Reading not only helps kids improve their literacy skills but can provide respite, connection, growth and pleasure. Take it from Mason, a seventh-grade student from Macomb County, Mich., who said, “I don’t know what happened to me, but I hated reading before. This year, my teacher had all these books and I just wanted to read constantly and now I love it.”
Reading truly opens the world, and it paves the way for dreams to be realized. That is why we do what we do—donating 2 million free books in two years to children, families and educators across America to help us become a nation of joyful and confident readers. Join the AFT in making that a reality at aft.org/read.
When the nation’s two national teachers unions quickly endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2015, they faced intense backlash from fellow labor leaders and from rank-and-file members who thought they jumped the gun.
This time around, both of the powerful labor groups are slowing their endorsement process, taking more input from members and holding public events with candidates.
The unions’ endorsement processes will culminate on Saturday, when they co-host a public education forum with 2020 candidates, televised by MSNBC, with civil rights and education groups like the NAACP and Voto Latino. It will be the first time such an event has ever been held.
“We have been waiting about 72,000 years for this. It really is historic,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen GarcÃa, whose union has more than 3 million members.
The forum will include Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), billionaire Tom Steyer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The AFT, which has 1.7 million members, became the first international labor union to endorse Hillary Clinton in July 2015. For the 2020 election, the group has completely overhauled its endorsement process. They’ve held town halls around the country with candidates and invited them to spend time with teachers. Locals are now allowed to endorse candidates apart from the national organization ― United Teachers Los Angeles has already endorsed Bernie Sanders, and AFT President Randi Weingarten said at least one other local is working on their own endorsement process.
A
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten (R) and National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen GarcÃa (2nd from R) said their unions are getting a lot of attention from Democratic candidates in the 2020 election.
Most major Democratic candidates have participated in one of the AFT’s town halls. Buttigieg is still working to schedule one, Weingarten said. Booker, who has had a historically tense relationship with teachers unions, hasn’t shown as much interest.
“We’ve really tried to pursue it, and let me just say it hasn’t gotten scheduled yet,” said Weingarten. A spokesperson for Booker did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Warren and Sanders have asked for a second town hall appearance.
By nominating Betsy DeVos for secretary of education, Donald Trump has shown he is serious about decimating public education.
For the last 30 years, DeVos has spent millions of her family fortune on a destructive mission to destroy public education and lobby for using taxpayer dollars for unregulated vouchers and for-profit charters without regard to quality. And just this morning, the Wall Street Journal broke news that the DeVos family is involved in a hedge fund that is making money off federal student loan debt.
National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and I have sent an open letter demanding that our secretary of education and every elected official respect and uphold the American vision of high-quality public schools for every single student.
It’s not surprising that Trump and DeVos, both billionaires who never attended or sent their children to public schools, fail to understand the importance of public education in fostering pluralism and opportunity—but it is deeply troubling.
Our public schools are the way the United States fulfills a collective promise: to take and teach every child seeking an education. Public education isn’t a partisan issue; 90 percent of American children attend public schools, and they deserve leaders who will strengthen those schools, not destabilize or defund them.
In 2000, DeVos and her husband bankrolled a multimillion-dollar ballot initiative to create school vouchers in Michigan, and voters overwhelmingly shot it down. DeVos then shifted her focus to the expansion of publicly funded but privately run charter schools.
Her push—and deep pockets—has resulted in an explosion in the number of for-profit charters in her home state, which now has the most in the nation. As a result, a yearlong investigation into two decades of charter school records was conducted, bringing to light the consequences of Michigan charter schools’ lack of oversight, transparency and accountability. And last spring, the DeVos family funded efforts to defeat a bill that would have placed both Detroit’s charter schools and its neighborhood public schools under the same oversight authority. During his campaign, Trump proposed a $20 billion voucher plan to shift taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools. With DeVos at his side, this could easily become a reality.
America has always prided itself on its promise to provide a high-quality public education to all students, regardless of where they live. We must reclaim that promise and stand up to those who wish to dismantle public education, which we have worked so hard to advance.
Many of us, public school teachers and parents, have enthusiastically supported Senator Sanders for President. We were encouraged by his opposition to NCLB, but disappointed when he voted for the Murphy Amendment, which would have imposed many of the conditions we’ve consistently opposed. Our students have been through more than enough of this already. Therefore we’ve written the following:
Dear Senator Sanders,
We are educators and supporters of yours, from across the country. Many of your positions on the issues that are the most significant facing the American populace resonate with us, inclusive of but not limited to economic inequality and the plutocratic maldistribution of political power.
In addition to being supporters and organizers for your campaign and the issues above, we are also some of the educators who are fighting against the privatization of public education and the test and punish philosophy that has become pervasive with far too many politicians. We champion this fight because our students, our profession, and the future of this country depend upon our changing the conditions that exist today under the failed No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top policies.
We are disappointed with your recent votes in the senate that contain provisions which perpetuate quantitatively based measures of education. Your Tennessee senatorial colleague Lamar Alexander correctly stated that what you just recently voted for, “Instead of fixing No Child Left Behind, it keeps the worst parts of it.”
Co sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, the AFT, the
Hillman Foundation and others.
The American
labor movement is at a critical juncture. After three decades of declining
union density in the private sector and years of all-out political assaults on
public sector unions, America’s unions now face what can only be described as
existential threats. Strategies and tactics that may have worked in a different
era are no longer adequate to today’s challenges. The need for different
approaches to the fundamentals of union work in areas such as organizing,
collective bargaining and political action is clear. The purpose of this
conference is to examine new thinking and new initiatives, viewing them
critically in the light of ongoing union imperatives of cultivating member
activism and involvement, fostering democratic self-governance and building the
collective power of working people. Jan.15, 2015.
Sit down, watch, educate yourself.Prepare DSA and working familiesfor the coming conflicts.
The conference has a number of leaders, including major DSA
activists and former DSA leaders, to understand thereality of unions today and organizing the
working class.
AFT’s Weingarten on Secretary
Duncan’s ESEA Reauthorization Remarks
In discussing priorities
for a revision of No Child
Left BehindSecretary
of education, Arne
Duncan, insisted onJanuary 5,
that the administration would not back away from annual testing for students
and performance evaluations of teachers based in part on the results of the
tests.
Annual testing has become a
point of contention in the often-bitter discussions about how best to improve
public education.
Monday, January 12, 2015
WASHINGTON—Statement from
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Education
Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act.
"As I've said before, any law that doesn't address our
biggest challenges—funding inequity, segregation, the effects of poverty—will
fail to make the sweeping transformation our kids and our schools need. Today, it
was promising to hear Secretary Duncan make a call for equity, stressing, as we
did through the Equity and Excellence Commission, the importance of early
childhood education and engaging curriculum. It was encouraging to hear him
laud the hard work of educators, who have had to overcome polarization and deep
cuts after a harsh recession. And it was heartening to hear him acknowledge the
progress our schools have made. However, the robust progress we saw in the
first 40 years after the passage of ESEA has slowed over the last 10 years.
