The Trump administration’s efforts to rein in diversity, equity, and inclusion policies plaguing public schools suffered a setback last month when judges in three states ruled in favor of advocacy groups defending the status quo. In one complaint, the American Federation of Teachers claimed the Trump administration policy change “will chill speech and expression.”
As a recently retired teacher who was a member of the union for decades, color me skeptical of the union’s commitment to the First Amendment. When I spoke against a union-approved DEI program and came under fire from school officials for my opinion, the union hung me out to dry.
Nineteen states, including my home state of Connecticut, followed the teachers’ union’s lead by suing the Department of Education over its plan to condition federal school funding on an end to DEI. The state coalition similarly claims that Trump’s policy change “threaten[s] to chill … speech[.]” But in my case, Connecticut school officials made it clear they can and will silence any speech they don’t like.
Such rank hypocrisy may not affect outcomes in court, but it should alert voters and teachers that when it comes to DEI, those cloaking themselves in the mantle of free speech view it as a one-way street.
This past fall, I ended a 35-year career teaching and training students in Hartford Public Schools. In that time, I successfully worked with kids from nearly every ethnic background.
But then I was told minority students couldn’t learn from me because I didn’t share their skin color, and that as a male I could not effectively teach female students. My privilege and implicit biases, according to DEI indoctrination, made me inadequate for the job — and possibly even a threat to the success of the children I thought I was helping.
What had changed? Not me. In 2017, new school administrators brought with them a race-focused agenda and sought to implement it through classroom teachers. They enlisted the Hartford Federation of Teachers, a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, to support their new direction.
Hellbound and Down 