Minneapolis’ new teachers’ union contract is creating controversy

There is uproar about a new contract between Minneapolis public schools and the teachers’ union because it might result in the firing of white instructors at the cost of teachers of colour.

The condition is a part of a new deal between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Minneapolis Public Schools that will take effect in the spring of 2023 and end a two-week long teachers’ strike.

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers President Greta Callahan
An effort to reformat how the school system recruits and retains teachers of colour was included in the deal.

The new contract states that while seniority is normally used to determine whether instructors are vulnerable to layoffs or relocations, they may deviate from this rule to protect teachers who are “members of a demographic underrepresented.”

If there are re-hires, this priority may also be used to hire back instructors who were fired.

Teachers’ unions typically support the Democratic Party. Last week, Minnesota Federation of Teachers President Greta Callahan, along with fellow squad members Rashida Tliab, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush, posed for a photo with progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar to show their support for Omar’s nearly disastrous primary campaign.

An economics professor immediately condemned the behaviour, calling it “racist in action.”

According to the contract, “The District must deprioritize the more senior teacher, who is not from an underrepresented population, in order to recall a teacher who is from an underrepresented population among licenced instructors.”

This makes the city one of the only ones in the nation, according to officials of the school system and teachers’ union, that engages in “seniority-disrupting.”

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers President Greta Callahan posed for a photo with far left Representative Ilhan Omar, along with fellow squad members Rashida Tliab, Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush while supporting Omar's nearly ill-fated primary bid last week
According to ABC News 4, the deal might become crucial shortly as the district is set to slash staff owing to financial cuts brought on by declining enrollments.

The creation of “anti-bias anti-racist” employee advisory groups is another requirement of the new contract.

In accordance with the contract, their main objectives should be “reducing inequitable practises and behaviours in our learning locations and spaces as well as helping educators, particularly educators of colour, in navigating and disrupting our district as a predominately white institution.”

The condition was initially alluded to in March when an agreement was first reached, emphasising the reality that the majority of Minneapolis’ most senior teachers are white and that individuals of colour are often the first to be let off.

 

At the time, union representatives informed MPR News that this safeguarded around “half” of the district’s teachers of colour.

Christopher Rufo, an activist for public school reform, among other conservative activists, expressed fury.

The stipulation is part of a new agreement starting in spring 2023 between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Minneapolis Public Schools ending a two-week long teachers' strike
This is “equity’s” inescapable end, he said in a tweet.

Contributors Leo Terrell and Clay Travis both attacked the accord on Fox News’ Hannity on Monday night.

Black civil rights lawyer Terrell declared: “It’s racist.” It’s unjust and discriminatory. It has to be revoked right now. I read the union’s statements. They said that they wanted professors that resembled them for their kids.

Wrong. The pupils need educators as their instructors. Educate. Not what they seem to be!

Yes, of course it would, sportswriter Travis, who runs the website Outkick the Coverage, concurred. And everything Leo stated, I agree with. Look, Sean, there are currently two pillars that support the Democratic Party.

Everything in America is racist, and it’s a terrible country. If you go down to the core of any programme the Democrats support, that is essentially what it is; that is what the Democrats think.

Scott Walker, a former governor of Wisconsin, also denounced the agreement in a tweet, calling it “racist.” This is forbidden. This is one another illustration of the need to do away with government unions.


A conservative political action committee known as the 1776 Project Pac described the deal as “breathtakingly discriminatory and simply unlawful.”

“Racism in action,” was how Mark J. Perry described it.

The Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that seeks to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups in comparison to the labour market and the community the school district serves, according to a spokesperson for the district.

It’s the most recent example of teachers’ unions supporting left-wing educational principles.

The contentious 1619 project has received support from both the AFT and the NEA for inclusion in the curriculum.

A “corrective history” of slavery in America was lauded for the effort, which began as a New York Times magnum opus. However, it has drawn harsh criticism for neglecting the truth in favour of a left-leaning revisionist narrative.


Although it is Weingarten’s stated position that Critical Race Theory is not taught in schools, she recently retaliated against parents who opposed it. But several studies indicate that those parents’ worries that it has gotten into the classrooms are justified.

Students in Buffalo, New York, are informed that “all white people” support institutional racism. The Arizona Department of Education has developed a “equity” toolbox that asserts that white children exhibit overt racism by the time they are five years old and that the earliest indicators of racism appear in infants at three months old.


Third graders in Cupertino, California, are required to analyse their ethnic identities and evaluate themselves in terms of their “power and privilege.”

White parents were issued a “tool for action” by the head of a school in New York City that urges them to support “white abolition” and become “white traitors.”

Additionally, there are teacher training sessions in Seattle where it was said that black children were the victims of “spirit murder” by schools.

Randi Weingarten often mixes with Democratic politicians. Then-Senator Kamala Harris appeared with her at the AFT's 2019 conference
These ideas are all fundamental to CRT, according to Bettina Love and Ibram X. Kendi, two extreme proponents.

The Department of Education included a link to Love’s Abolitionist Teaching Network’s Guide to Racial and Restorative Justice in its most recent handbook for students returning to school after COVID.

 

This publication accuses white teachers of the “spirit murder” of minority students and calls for all white teachers to undergo “anti-racist therapy.”