Bargaining campaigns ‘must dismantle white supremacy, and ensure that bigotry and discrimination’ are not part of the association or curricula, the NEA says.
In a recently-uncovered “Bargaining for the Common Good Racial Justice Guide,” the National Education Association advises members to launch racial justice-centered bargaining campaigns to address systemic inequities.
Members of the largest labor union in the country should embark on such campaigns “to take on corporate power and fight for the schools, housing, and cities we all deserve,” the NEA says in a bargaining toolkit. The document, which was shared with National Review by watchdog group Defending Education, comes to light after a report that the NEA will host an “Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice and Transgender Advocacy” session that highlights race, class, and gender at its upcoming December training academy.
Union members should center racial justice in their collective bargaining demands, the guide says. Along with achieving better pay and benefits for educators, common good bargaining campaigns have achieved less testing for students, equitable school discipline policies, restricted Immigration and Customs Enforcement collaborations, implementation of restorative justice, and the expansion of ethnic studies for students, among other things, the NEA says.
Bargaining campaigns “must dismantle white supremacy, and ensure that bigotry and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin is not part of our Association, classrooms, educational curricula, classroom management, school policies, and discipline practices,” the guide adds. “Our Association and schools must be safe for all students, and free from state-sanctioned, racialized, and gender-based violence. Our work must actively divest from prison cultivation and invest in counselors and positive discipline practices.”
Campaigns must also work to combat “some far-right politicians, policymakers and pundits” who are working to “dismantle” democracy and appease “wealthy donors.”
Due to systemic problems of racism, educators must take on dual roles as “both workers and key leaders in their communities,” according to the guide. Additionally, educators should address in their campaigns “racial dynamics, disparities, and divisions [that] permeate our society, communities, schools, and classrooms.” As an example of a positive racial-justice campaign, the NEA references “Fix L.A.,” which was a “community-labor partnership” that achieved the creation of 5,000 jobs “with a commitment to increase access to jobs for Black and Latino/a/x workers.”
Other successful NEA BCG campaigns include ones that “acknowledge the pandemic was not experienced equally by all communities and populations, particularly in rural areas and communities of color”; “end attempts to re-segregate our school communities with charters, vouchers, and other privatization schemes that funnel resources away from public schools”; “ensure school plans for in-person instruction are inclusive and equitable for all educators and students by humanizing learning environments and designing spaces that are situated in the experiences of communities of color, not just through white, cis-hetero, and ableist lenses”; and “prioritize hiring, retaining, and promoting educators of color.”
The Department of Education sent a Dear Colleague letter to federally-funded educational institutions in February that addressed race-based hiring and other diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights wrote in the letter. “Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”
The NEA filed suit on behalf of its 3 million members against the DOE’s classification of DEI. The DOE’s directive to curb DEI initiatives threatened to “punish students, parents and educators in public schools for [fostering] inclusive classrooms where diversity is valued, history is taught honestly, and every child can grow into their full brilliance,” NEA President Becky Pringle said at the time.
DEI’s prominence in the NEA’s mission is featured heavily in its bargaining campaign guide.
For example, members seeking to build a racial justice team should ensure that “Native People and People of Color have a leading voice, are listened to, trusted, and have decision-making power within the partnership.”
“It isn’t enough to have Native People and People of Color activists in the campaigns.”
The NEA has an ambitious goal to support ten campaigns per state by 2026, around 500 campaigns in total. Campaigns the NEA has supported in the past include one in Columbus, Ohio, in which the Columbus Education Association convinced its district to expand professional development opportunities for CEA bargaining unit members centered around issues of racial disparity, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Another campaign in Minneapolis, Minn., helped the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers establish an “Anti-Bias Anti-Racist Educator Development and Support Council.”
Lawmakers have pushed recently to revoke the NEA’s federal charter, which was granted by Congress in 1906 for promoting the “cause of education in the United States.”
“The NEA long ago transformed from an educational association into a political machine, pushing a progressive agenda that puts activists ahead of students’ needs,” Wisconsin Representative Scott Fitzgerald said earlier this year.