SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
randi weingarten
Trump's GOP Blamed as Rural Health Clinics Begin to Fall Under Crushing Weight of Big, Ugly Bill
A Virginia healthcare company said it was closing three rural clinics as part of its "ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
Sep 23, 2025
Hospitals and healthcare clinics across the US have been announcing layoffs, service cuts, and closures in the weeks since Republicans passed a budget law that's estimated to slash spending on Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.
Monday reporting by CNN highlighted that Augusta Medical Group is closing three of its rural clinics in Virginia. The company said in a statement earlier this month that the closures were "part of Augusta Health’s ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the resulting realities for healthcare delivery."
The CNN report noted that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger recently campaigned in Buena Vista, one of the rural communities that will be losing its clinic, to make the case that the cuts in the GOP's budget law should be reversed.
Tim Layton, an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, told CNN that rural areas figure to be particularly vulnerable to the Medicaid cuts given their lower population densities.
"You can expect those places to be impacted by now having people who don’t even have Medicaid,” he said. “With fewer people to spread fixed costs across, it becomes harder and harder to stay open."
Layton also dismissed Republicans' claims to have created protections for rural hospitals with a $50 billion rural health fund, as he described it as a "short-term patch" that will "go pretty quick." KFF earlier this year estimated that rural Medicaid spending would fall by $137 billion as a result of the GOP law, which is nearly triple the money allocated by the health fund.
Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, seized on the CNN report and used it to tie incumbent Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to the national Republican Party's policy agenda under President Donald Trump.
"The Big Bill causing three rural clinics in Virginia to close is just the tip of the iceberg," he wrote in a social media post. "And it's happening because Jason Miyares is too scared to fight against Trump’s Medicaid cuts that will throw nearly 300,000 Virginians off their healthcare."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten also ripped the GOP for passing Medicaid cuts that are hurting the communities they represent.
"Hundreds of healthcare providers in rural areas depend on Medicaid funding to keep doors open and care for patients," she wrote. "But Trump’s Big Ugly Bill cuts millions from Medicaid, leaving these healthcare providers in jeopardy."
Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy, said that the cuts to Medicaid looked particularly bad politically for Republicans when contrasted to the tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high-income Americans.
“These closures are the congressional Republican agenda in action: cuts to healthcare for rural moms and families, tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires,” Tal said. “These closures are not an accident—they are the direct result of a law written to serve the wealthy and leave working people behind, and unless Republicans in Congress reverse course, more working-class Americans will be left behind while the rich get even richer.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Oklahoma Screening Teachers From California, New York for 'Radical Leftist Ideology'
"This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage," said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.
Aug 20, 2025
Teachers from California and New York seeking work in Oklahoma will be required to pass an "America First Test" designed to weed out applicants espousing "radical leftist ideology," the state's public schools chief affirmed Monday.
Oklahoma—which has a severe teacher shortage, persistently high turnover, and some of the nation's worst educational outcomes—will compel prospective public school educators from the nation's two largest "blue" states to submit to the exam in a bid to combat what Superintendent for Public Instruction Ryan Walters calls "woke indoctrination."
"As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York," Walters said in a statement Monday.
Walters told USA Today that the test is necessary to vet teachers from states where educators "are teaching things that are antithetical to our standards" and ensure they "are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids."
However, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten warned in a statement Monday that "this MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage."
The exam will be administered by Prager University—also known as PragerU—a right-wing nonprofit group which, despite its name, is not an academic institution and does not confer degrees.
While all of the test's 50 questions have not been made public, the ones that have been published run the gamut from insultingly basic—such as, "What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?"—to ideologically fraught queries regarding the "biological differences between females and males."
PragerU's "educational" materials are rife with false or misleading information regarding slavery, racism, immigration, the history of fascism, and the climate emergency. Critics note that the nonprofit has received millions of dollars in funding from fossil fuel billionaires.
PragerU materials also promote creation mythology over scientific evolution and attack LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender individuals, calling lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare "barbaric" while likening its proponents to "monsters."
In one animated PragerU video, two children travel back in time to ask the genocidal explorer Christopher Columbus why he is so hated today. Columbus replies by asserting the superiority of Europeans over Indigenous "cannibals" and attempting to justify the enslavement of Native Americans by arguing that "being taken as a slave is better than being killed."
Closer to home, PragerU's curriculum aligns with so-called "white discomfort" legislation passed in Oklahoma and other Republican-controlled states that critics say prevents honest lessons on slavery, the Jim Crow and civil rights eras, and enduring systemic racism.
The law has had a chilling effect on teachers' lessons on historical topics including the 1921 Tulsa massacre, in which a white supremacist mob backed armed by city officials destroyed more than 35 city blocks of Greenwood, the "Black Wall Street," murdering hundreds of Black men, women, and children in what the US Justice Department this year called a "coordinated, military-style attack."
Responding to Oklahoma's new policy, University of Pennsylvania history professor Jonathan Zimmerman told The Associated Press that "instead of Prager simply being a resource that you can draw in an optional way, Prager has become institutionalized as part of the state system."
"There's no other way to describe it," he said, adding, "I think what we're now seeing in Oklahoma is something different, which is actually empowering Prager as a kind of gatekeeper for future teachers."
Oklahoma is not the only state incorporating PragerU materials into its curriculum. Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, and Texas have also done so to varying degrees.
Weingarten noted Walters' previous push to revise Oklahoma's curriculum standards to include baseless conspiracy theories pushed by President Donald Trump that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election. Walters also ordered all public schools to teach the Bible, a directive temporarily blocked by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in March. The court also recently ruled against the establishment of the nation's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school.
"His priority should be educating students, but instead, it's getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him," Weingrarten said in her statement.
Cari Elledge, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, called the new testing requirement "a political stunt to grab attention" and a distraction "from real issues in Oklahoma."
"When political ideology plays into whether or not you can teach in any place, that might be a deterrent to quality educators attempting to get a job," she added. "We think it's intentional to make educators fearful and confused."
California Teachers' Association president David Goldberg told USA Today that "this almost seems like satire and so far removed from my research around what Oklahoma educators need and deserve."
"I can't see how this isn't some kind of hyper-political grandstanding that doesn't serve any of those needs," he added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'You Don't Thank a Burglar for Returning Your Cash': Trump Admin Finally Releases Education Funds
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," said one Democratic senator.
Jul 25, 2025
While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.
The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.
"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."
🚨After unlawfully withholding billions in education funding for schools, the Trump Admin. has reversed course.This is a massive victory for students, educators, & families who depend on these essential resources.And it's a testament to public pressure & relentless organizing.
[image or embed]
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@pressley.house.gov) July 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which represents plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's funding freeze—said Friday that "if these reports are true, this is a major victory for public education and the communities it serves."
"This news following our legal challenge is a direct result of collective action by educators, families, and advocates across the country," Perryman asserted. "These funds are critical to keeping teachers in classrooms, supporting students in vulnerable conditions, and ensuring schools can offer the programs and services that every child deserves."
"While this development shows that legal and public pressure can make a difference, school districts, parents, and educators should not have to take the administration to court to secure funds for their students," she added. "Our promise to the people remains: We will go to court to protect the rights and well-being of all people living in America."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes—a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the withholding—attributed the administration's backpedaling to litigatory pressure, arguing that the funding "should never have been withheld in the first place."
They released the 7 B IN SCHOOL FUNDS!! This is a huge win. It means fighting back matters. Fighting for what kids & communities need is always the right thing to do! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
[image or embed]
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association—the largest U.S. labor union—said in a statement: "Playing games with students' futures has real-world consequences. School districts in every state have been scrambling to figure out how they will continue to meet student needs without this vital federal funding, and many students in parts of the country have already headed back to school. These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success."
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education—starving it of resources, sowing distrust, and pushing privatization at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "And they are doing this at the same time Congress has passed a budget bill that will devastate our students, schools, and communities by slashing funds meant for public education, healthcare, and keeping students from their school meals—all to finance massive tax breaks for billionaires."
While expanding support for private education, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month weakens public school programs including before- and after-school initiatives and services for English language learners.
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education."
Trump also signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education—a longtime goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial and unpopular plan.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department illegally impounded crucial funds from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other services to low-income families.
"Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids' reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off," Murray noted.
"It's time for President Trump, Secretary McMahon, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought to stop playing games with students' futures and families' livelihoods—and end their illegal assault on our students and their schools," the senator added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Don't Have to Live This Way,' Says Teachers Union Leader After Florida Shooting
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," said the head of the American Federation of Teachers.
Apr 17, 2025
Following a deadly shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, vowed to redouble the union's efforts to push for gun safety reform.
"Campuses and classrooms must be safe and welcoming places, but they can become unsafe in an instant because of the ever-present threat of gun violence," said Weingarten, who noted that the shooting at FSU comes on the heels of a shooting at a Dallas, Texas high school on Wednesday and a shooting near a school campus in San Antonio, Texas also on Wednesday.
"We are the only country in the world that regularly deals with this—but we don't have to live this way," Weingarten said. "We should remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines, and pass more risk-protection laws."
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," Weingarten concluded.
In a press conference Thursday afternoon, FSU Chief of Police Jason Trumbower said that two people are dead following the shooting—though they were not students. Six others were wounded. The gunman was also shot and is at the hospital.
CNN reported that the shooting suspect has been identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, who is the son of a Leon County sheriff deputy.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, said he is not surprised by the shooting at FSU and that some of his daughter's friends are currently attending FSU.
"My daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Many of her friends who were lucky enough to survive that shooting went on to attend FSU. Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today," he wrote on X.
The Tallahassee Democrat also reported that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting was at the FSU campus Thursday.
The gun violence prevention group Giffords reacted to the news of the shooting, writing on X: "What Florida doesn't have: Universal background checks, assault weapon restrictions, large-capacity magazine bans. What Florida does have: The latest school shooting in America."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Judge Blocks DOGE 'Fishing Expedition' in Sensitive Social Security Data Systems
"The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans," said one union leader.
Mar 20, 2025
Defenders of the Social Security Administration celebrated a federal judge's Thursday order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from access to millions of Americans' SSA records.
"The DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack," wrote Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who issued a temporary restraining order.
In her 137-page opinion, Hollander explained that "to facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE team with unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers' license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses."
"Yet, defendants, with so-called experts on the DOGE team, never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE team needs unlimited access to SSA's entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government," noted the appointee of former President Barack Obama.
"Indeed, the government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task. Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud. Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," asserted the judge, concluding that "plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that such action is arbitrary and capricious," and violates the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The plaintiffs in this case are three advocacy and labor groups—the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Alliance for Retired Americans, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)—represented by Democracy Forward. In addition to DOGE, they sued the SSA and its acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, over the "data grab."
"This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country," AFSCME president Lee Saunders said of the Thursday order. "The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans. This decision will not only force them to delete any data they have currently saved, but it will also block them from further sharing, accessing, or disclosing our Social Security information."
AFT president Randi Weingarten also welcomed the development, saying that "no one filed for Social Security believing their personal assets would be appropriated by a billionaire who attacks Social Security as a 'Ponzi scheme.' Americans must be allowed to retire with dignity and grace without having to worry about Elon Musk jeopardizing their savings."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which is involved with multiple court battles challenging the Trump administration's sweeping assault on the federal government—pledged Thursday that "our team will continue its legal efforts to ensure that this data remains protected and that those responsible are held accountable."
Judges who have ruled against Trump and Musk's agenda have faced threats of violence and impeachment.
While the Musk-led entity's attempt to gut the federal government has sparked various legal fights, "this ruling is the first time a federal court has explicitly mandated that Musk and DOGE delete unlawfully obtained data," according to Democracy Forward.
Critics of the administration's attempt to "sabotage" the SSA—which includes cutting phone services, laying off workers, shutting down offices, and stealing seniors' earned benefits—warn that Trump and Musk are pushing for privatization.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Teachers Union Sues Over Trump Attack on Student Loan Repayment Programs
"By effectively freezing the nation's student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people."
Mar 19, 2025
A leading teachers union announced Wednesday that it is suing the Trump administration for cutting off public service workers with federal student loans from affordable repayment and debt relief programs.
"By effectively freezing the nation's student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college," said American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten in a statement. "The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again."
"The AFT has fought tirelessly to make college more affordable by limiting student debt for public service workers and countless others—progress that's now in jeopardy because of this illegal and immoral decision to deny borrowers their rights under the law,” the union leader continued. "Today, we're suing to restore access to the statutory programs that are an anchor for so many, and that cannot be simply stripped away by executive fiat."
The 1.8 million-member union is represented by the law firm Berger Montague PC and the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), which filed the federal lawsuit late Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
"The U.S. government, through the U.S. Department of Education (ED or the department), is the country's largest creditor of student loans," the complaint notes. "Today, there are nearly 43 million federal student loan borrowers, with approximately $1.62 trillion outstanding in debt."
As the filing details, Congress "designed this federal student loan program to expand access to higher education and increase economic mobility regardless of one's financial station," and specifically "directed ED to offer income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that tie a borrower's monthly payment to their income."
However, under President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the department has shut down IDR plans and not "indicated when it will—if ever—resurrect the programs," the complaint continues. "The result: borrowers are unable to access affordable monthly payment plans, some borrowers are being thrust into default on their debt, and some public service workers are being denied their statutory right to lower their monthly payment and earn credit towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)."
"This is not occurring in a vacuum for student loan borrowers," the document stresses. "It comes in the context of the president repeatedly announcing his plans to close the Department of Education, which was created by an act of Congress. And, it is on the heels of the recent equally unlawful actions to gut critical student loan protections from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
Additionally, as Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Trump has directly attacked the PSLF with an executive order excluding from the debt relief program "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose," targeting groups that help immigrants and transgender youth and organize protests that involve actions such as blocking roads.
"A significant number of AFT's membership has student debt, is working in public service, and has sought or will try to seek access to an IDR plan," the suit explains. "These borrowers simply want to pay back their student loans according to the terms that Congress, and their contracts, provide."
The AFT asked the court to declare that the Education Department is "unlawfully withholding" IDR plans and the PSLF program, and prevent the ED from "collecting from borrowers who are eligible for income-driven repayment until it satisfies its statutory, regulatory, and contractual obligations." The union also wants the court to order the department to fulfil those obligations.
"Student loan borrowers are desperate for help, struggling to keep up with spiking monthly payments in a sinking economy, all while President Trump plays politics with the student loan system," said SBPC executive director Mike Pierce. "Borrowers have a legal right to payments they can afford and today we are demanding that these rights are enforced by a federal judge."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Another Unqualified Billionaire': Senate Confirms McMahon as Education Secretary
"The more the president stacks his administration with eccentric billionaires, the further the system gets rigged against working people, seniors, and students," argued one critic.
Mar 03, 2025
Continuing what one watchdog called "their pattern of rubber-stamping deeply flawed and unqualified" Cabinet nominees of President Donald Trump, Senate Republicans on Monday confirmed sports entertainment billionaire and prolific GOP fundraiser Linda McMahon to head the U.S. Department of Education—an agency the president has repeatedly vowed to abolish.
Senators confirmed McMahon in a 51-45 vote. The loyal Trump ally and top fundraiser previously led the Small Business Administration during the president's first term. However, other than serving one year on the Connecticut Board of Education and as a trustee for Sacred Heart University, she has little experience in the field.
Republicans—many of whom share Trump's desire to end the Department of Education—didn't seem to care, with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa asserting that "education is still mostly a state and local responsibility."
BREAKING: Senate Republicans just confirmed Linda McMahon as Education Secretary—another unqualified billionaire who doesn't understand the Department she's tasked with leading and who is ready to grab the hatchet and help Trump destroy the Department of Education altogether.
— Senator Patty Murray (@murray.senate.gov) March 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
McMahon gained a more dubious reputation for what one campaigner called her "documented history of enabling sexual abuse of children and sweeping sexual violence under the rug" during her tenure as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO.
The 76-year-old finds herself in the position of being simultaneously tasked with dismantling the DOE and ramping up attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; "woke" education; transgender students; and other right-wing bugaboos. She is also expected to promote expanded voucher programs, which supporters call "school choice."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers—which is leading a "Protect Our Kids" nationwide day of action Tuesday—said in a statement that "we know we will disagree with Secretary McMahon on a host of issues, including her stance on using public funds for private school vouchers."
"We're deeply concerned that her boss, Donald Trump, wants her to take a wrecking ball to the Department of Education and this nation's public schools," Weingarten added. "We want to work with her on strengthening public schools and ramping up high school career and technical education and workforce development efforts across the nation. We ask that she respect the hardworking and amazing educators of this country who are helping young people every day."
National Education Association president Becky Pringle said in a
statement that "every student—no matter where they live, how much their family earns, or the color of their skin—deserves the opportunity, resources, and support they need to grow into their full brilliance."
"Linda McMahon has pledged to dismantle public education and take away resources students need by hollowing out the Department of Education, destroying programs that support students with disabilities, making higher education less accessible, and gutting civil rights protections," Pringle continued.
"While educators and parents would hope McMahon will reflect upon the enormous responsibility she has to our nation's students, sadly there is no evidence to believe she will use her position to focus on strengthening public schools so every student can thrive," she added.
Tony Carrk, the executive director of the watchdog Accountable.US, argued that "every senator who confirmed McMahon is now complicit in the Trump-Project 2025 scheme to abolish the Education Department and jeopardize billions in federal funding needed to strengthen public schools and support special education programs."
"The one-two gut punch of the administration's plans to starve states,
especially conservative ones, of critical federal Medicaid and education money to pay for another wasteful tax break for billionaires like McMahon will leave millions of Americans behind for decades to come," Carrk added. "The more the president stacks his administration with eccentric billionaires, the further the system gets rigged against working people, seniors, and students."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Teachers Sue Trump Administration for Trying to Weaponize Civil Rights Laws
"This vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession, and knowledge itself," said one union leader.
Feb 25, 2025
A coalition of educators and sociologists filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the U.S. Department of Education for threatening to withhold funding from schools that don't comply with the Trump administration's radical revision of long-established federal civil rights law.
The lawsuit, filed in a Maryland federal court by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), AFT Maryland, and the American Sociological Association (ASA), comes in response to a February 14 directive from the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights prohibiting U.S. schools at all levels from "race-based decision making, no matter the form."
This directive followed President Donald Trump's executive order calling diversity, equity, and inclusion "discriminatory" and banning DEI programs and practices across the federal government. Trump subsequently signed another order revoking civil rights protections for people of color and women enacted during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and yet another targeting what he called "radical indoctrination"—which includes racial justice, LGBTQ+, and other topics—in K-12 education.
Last week, a federal judge in Maryland granted a preliminary injunction blocking portions of Trump's anti-DEI orders on grounds they "likely" violate the First Amendment.
Critics have slammed Trump's DEI ban as a rollback of hard-fought rights for historically marginalized people under false civil rights pretexts.
"This vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession, and knowledge itself," AFT president Randi Weingarten said of the February 14 missive in a statement Tuesday.
Democracy Forward represents @aftunion.bsky.social, @aftmaryland.bsky.social & @asanews.bsky.social, in lawsuit challenging the Dept of Ed's new policy threatening to withhold federal funding for education institutions that do not comply with its weaponization of civil rights laws. (1/2)
[image or embed]
— Democracy Forward (@democracyforward.org) February 25, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Weingarten continued:
It would hamper efforts to extend access to education, and dash the promise of equal opportunity for all, a central tenant of the United States since its founding. It would ban meaningful instruction on slavery, the Missouri Compromise, the Emancipation Proclamation, the forced relocation of Native American tribes, the laws of Jim Crow, Brown v. Board of Education, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. It would upend campus life. Federal statute already prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach. And students have the right to learn without the threat of culture wars waged by extremist politicians hanging over their heads. Our suit exposes these harms and shows how this memo's arbitrary and capricious reasoning flies in the face of both American values and established law.
AFT Maryland president Kenya Campbell said: "Trump's Department of Education is undermining the freedom of every student in Maryland and across the country to learn honest history, stoking more fear and division in the classroom. In a country where there should be no barriers on education, this broad-reaching and unlawful attack threatens the functionality of our public schools."
"We cannot meet the needs of every student, if we cannot teach the diverse and complex history of every student, and that is why AFT Maryland has joined this lawsuit—to ensure the honest education of all who learn in Maryland and across the country, from K-12 schools in our most vulnerable communities to our higher education institutions," Campbell added.
ASA president Adia Harvey Wingfield noted that "sociologists examine society and group behavior, including race and racial inequality."
"Studying and teaching about social movements like the civil rights movement, economic disparities caused by redlining, or immigration policies is impossible without acknowledging the central role of race in these and many other social phenomena," Wingfield argued. "This memo doesn't just hinder sociologists from doing our jobs or merely violate our right to free speech— it inflicts a profound disservice upon students who gain from a more comprehensive understanding of the world and upon society as a whole that benefits from our discoveries about human behavior."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Dangerous': Judge Blocks Student Debt Relief Rule That Doesn't Exist Yet
"Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance," said one observer.
Sep 05, 2024
A Republican-appointed U.S. federal judge in Georgia raised eyebrows and objections Thursday after taking what observers called the "unprecedented" step of blocking a rule that hasn't even been finalized in order to stop the Biden administration from implementing a plan to deliver promised debt relief to millions of student borrowers.
U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia James Randal Hall issued an order blocking the Biden administration's proposed federal student debt relief rule. Hall—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—granted a motion by a coalition of right-wing state attorneys general to preempt the rule's eventual implementation.
"The court is substituting its judgment for those elected to serve the public," American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in response to the ruling. "It subverts the democratic process and denies relief to student loan borrowers, many of whom rely on debt relief programs already advanced by the Biden-Harris administration."
"This court's unprecedented decision to block a rule that does not yet exist is not only bad for the 30 million borrowers who were relying on the administration to deliver much-needed relief," she continued. "It's a harbinger of the chaos and corruption right-wing judges seek to force on the American people."
Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center—which called the ruling "dangerous and unprecedented"—denounced Hall for preventing the Biden administration from delivering student debt relief "even though no plan has been finalized."
"This is an extraordinary break with precedent and a brazen move by the conservative movement to shift even more power to unelected, unaccountable red-state judges," he said. "Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance."
"This is the clearest sign yet that Project 2025 is already terrorizing student loan borrowers through a slow-moving judicial coup," Pierce added, referring to a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—which critics warn would worsen the U.S. student debt crisis.
Biden's proposal would forgive some or all student debt for around 30 million borrowers who have been repaying undergraduate loans for at least 20 years, or graduate loans for 25 years.
Hall's order is based on what he said was the plaintiffs' "substantial likelihood of success on the merits given the rule's lack of statutory authority" and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona's "attempt to implement a rule contrary to normal procedures."
"This is especially true in light of the recent rulings across the country striking down similar federal student loan forgiveness plans," he added.
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority last year struck down Biden's initial plan to relieve up to $20,000 in federal scholastic debt for around 40 million borrowers, and last month the justices kept in place a sweeping suspension of the administration's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which aims to lower monthly repayments and hasten loan forgiveness.
Keep ReadingShow Less
American Federation of Teachers Joins Call for Gaza Cease-Fire
The union's executive council called for a cease-fire after months of pressure from educators across the United States.
Jan 30, 2024
The result of "significant" input from rank-and-file members of the American Federation of Teachers from across the United States, the 1.72 million-strong union's executive council on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The resolution calls for a "negotiated bilateral cease-fire" that would be guaranteed by the international community, including the U.S. and other countries that are supporting Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
"A cease-fire agreement must include the immediate provision of desperately needed food, water, medical care, clothing, emergency shelter, and other humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the release of all hostages abducted by Hamas from Israel on October 7," reads the statement.
The resolution also reaffirms "the AFT's support for a two-state solution," condemns antisemitism and Islamophobia, and demands that all people should be "safe to express dissent" in the United States.
"The conflict should not be used as an excuse to wage political attacks on American colleges and universities, or as a pretext to undermine necessary efforts to increase diversity, promote equity, and advance inclusion," reads the union's statement.
The resolution was passed after numerous attacks on Palestinian rights protesters' right to organize groups and demonstrations on college campuses.
"The conflict should not be used as an excuse to wage political attacks on American colleges and universities, or as a pretext to undermine necessary efforts to increase diversity, promote equity, and advance inclusion."
Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, noted that many members of the union "are deeply connected to people in Israel and the Palestinian territories, so they feel that pain personally; and many others, including the students we teach, are horrified and aggrieved by what has happened."
The resolution was passed as at least 26,751 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in less than four months, as Israel has claimed to be targeting Hamas and the U.S. government has vehemently defended Israel's actions—even as the International Court of Justice found last week, after reviewing South Africa's case against Israel, that the country is "plausibly" committing genocidal acts in Gaza.
"The time for war is over, and the time for diplomacy must begin," said Weingarten. "We believe wholeheartedly that the path forward in the Middle East must end the decades of conflict and bloodshed by recognizing the rights of both peoples and affirming a two-state solution. Our work does not stop with a resolution: We will not shy away from continuing to listen to our members and our communities and endeavoring to move toward a lasting peace."
State and local teachers' unions across the country have passed resolutions demanding a cease-fire over the past three months. The United Auto Workers, American Postal Workers Union, Service Employees International Union, and other labor groups have also made the demand.
Weingarten herself called for a cease-fire last month. Olivia Katbi, an organizer with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement to fight Israel's apartheid policies in Palestine, noted that Weingarten announced her position following "months of pressure from rank-and-file educators across the country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More Stories
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
About
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy