Isaac Newman wanted to stop his union from spending millions on DEI. But he was barred from leadership because of his race.
Isaac Newman watched as his California school district and the teachers union that purports to represent him poured millions of taxpayer dollars into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. After experiencing the impact of that spending first hand, Newman decided to do something about it.
As a ten-year veteran high-school history teacher in the Elk Grove Unified School District, Newman is attuned to the ramifications of policy measures that enable government officials to coerce outcomes detached from merit. Forced to undergo a DEI training that promoted the very ideas he saw undermining his school district, Newman asked his union to push back on his behalf. When the union refused to help, he decided to run for a board seat so he could change the organization from within.
But, thanks to the same ideas promoted in the DEI training he had objected to, Newman’s race meant he was ineligible for a newly created seat on the union board. That’s why he filed suit last May against the local affiliate of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the U.S., which represents about 3 million public employees who are mostly teachers.
In April 2023, Newman’s union created a new position on its executive board reserved exclusively for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) members. The at-large seat was only open to union members who self-identified as “African American (Black), Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, Pacific Islander, Latino (including Puerto Rican), Asian, Arab, [or] Middle Eastern.” The position’s candidate application for the December 2023 election included a mandatory checkbox asking for candidates to mark only if they met the board’s desired racial categories.
“They had this long list of racial and ethnic categories that could qualify for the position, but being white was not one of them,” Newman explained in an interview. “So, you had to check this box, and if you didn’t check it, you could not submit the form to run. This was basically a segregated position.”
Newman’s suit cited the union’s alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment Housing Act, which both prohibit unions from discriminating on the basis of race. Newman was expecting a long, multiyear battle, but the Elk Grove Education Association capitulated in just a matter of months.
“They basically just surrendered because they knew they were going to lose,” Newman said. “This is a huge victory because they promised to never discriminate again, and they agreed to desegregate this position.”
The Elk Grove Education Association agreed to pay Newman $12,000 in damages, and his attorneys’ fees, as part of the judicial order in September that resolved the case in Newman’s favor. The union also agreed to terminate the BIPOC position that was open only to non-white candidates, and to refrain from discriminating again in any union position.
Nathan McGrath, president and general counsel of the Fairness Center, the nonprofit, public-interest law firm that represented Newman, credits his client for blunting a form of discrimination that could have proliferated in other unions.
“This was a clear violation of Title VII and California’s employment and fair housing law,” McGrath said. “We were glad to help our client stop this early to prevent this type of violation from spreading across the country.”
The Elk Grove Education Association and the Elk Grove school district did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
The Fairness Center says it is devoted to protecting public employees when union officials violate their rights. In addition to California, it is active in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Colorado and represents federal employees in any state.
Newman is donating the $12,000 he received in damages to scholarships for local students. He also intends to remain active within his union and to push back against policies he views as counterproductive and harmful.
“As a history teacher, I know that when you push for equal outcomes, as opposed to just treating people equally and fairly, it has not gone well,” Newman explained. “That’s because equal outcomes require force, which leads to a corruption of the system.”
Newman was initially motivated to seek a board position because the union would not advocate on his behalf against DEI training in his district that he viewed as highly divisive, offensive, and a distraction from the district’s educational mission. He first raised questions about the implications of the training’s recommendations in an April 2023 email to his local school board.
“Are we being asked to turn our students into activists?” Newman wrote in the letter. “If so, whose politics are we teaching them to activate in favor of?”
The DEI workbook included as part of the district’s DEI training has a section describing “microaggressions” that Newman views as highly skewed and biased against him and his white colleagues. The curriculum also takes aim at the concepts of meritocracy and colorblindness.
“A school that eschews the concept of a meritocracy and colorblindness, embraces racism,” Newman said. “This is what’s happening in my district, and that’s why I wrote the email to the school board. They are trying to teach us that meritocracy and colorblindness are themselves racist concepts when the reverse is true. What they are doing is very Orwellian.”
The district’s endorsement of Robin DiAngelo, an education professor and diversity consultant, is particularly problematic for Newman. DiAngelo is best known for her book on “White Fragility” and for her support of “critical race theory,” a concept that views all aspects of American life through racial lenses.
“The district tried to claim it was just teaching about DEI and CRT and so that it should be okay,” Newman said. “I pointed out that the training actually endorses CRT and DEI in many areas and never gives an opposing viewpoint.”
Newman also wanted to know how much taxpayers and public employees were on the hook for to fund DEI initiatives they may not support. Based on the information he received from the district in an email exchange, the school district has budgeted a little more than $6 million to run its Education Equity Office for the current school year. But that doesn’t include the salaries of its equity coaches, the cost of the DEI curriculum, or the stipends paid to staff members to take the trainings. When they are included, the numbers compiled by Newman show the district has spent more than $14 million on DEI programs.
In October, the long-time history teacher ran for a Racial Equity At Large board position newly created by the union to replace the one that barred white candidates. This time the position has no overt racial stipulations. He received about 21 percent of the vote while his opponent received a little more than 78 percent.
“I can quit the union in frustration, but that’s what everyone else has done,” he said. “Most people who would agree with me have left the union and that means most voters who would agree with me are gone.”
But Newman is determined to press ahead since he has a long family history in the district.
“I grew up in the district, my mother taught here, I teach here, and my kids go here,” he said. “I’d like to see the union change its ways, and leaving the union does not leave that as an option.”