Posts tagged Alliance for Justice
Teachers union presidents blast Supreme Court affirmative action ruling
July 17, 2023 // Weingarten said, “At the end of the day, those of us in education, and frankly for those of us in Labor … we fight for a better life for everyone. Neither of us are going to stop fighting for what kids and communities need to succeed,” Weingarten said. “Whether that kid is dyslexic or scarred by social media issues or, frankly, whether that kid, because schools were closed for a long time, has issues because of that.” Those words stand in stark contrast to her and her union’s actions, such as when AFT handcrafted school shutdown policies at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) federal agency in early 2021. Based on released emails, AFT sent a list of suggestions (which included closing schools) to the CDC, and the CDC adopted much of the AFT’s list in their final public health guidance that kept schools closed.
Teachers union presidents blast Supreme Court affirmative action ruling
July 14, 2023 // In a Twitter Spaces online, audio-only discussion event hosted by the progressive group Alliance for Justice, both Weingarten and Pringle blasted the Court. Weingarten emphasized that the Court’s ruling was “horrible” and immediately drew a connection to her interpretations of history. “What this decision does is basically ignore the original sin of slavery and the effects of that original sin and pretends that there is no longer an effect to it,” Weingarten affirmed. “And [it] basically says that equal protection means whatever the dominant power play is right now, that’s what should be happening in America.” Weingarten claimed that the Court “is no longer calling balls and strikes” and is too busy “making law that is quite ideological.” In her words, “Our job has gotten both harder and easier in the last couple years because of these decisions — a dynamic she attributes to the public having “no confidence in the Court.”
AFT’s Weingarten speaks at launch event of new progressive group
June 27, 2023 // Both AFT and the National Education Association (NEA) were listed as key partners on UFD’s website, along with SEIU, League of Conservation Voters, and the Center for Popular Democracy. It begs the question why unions, who should be focused on serving their members, are lining up alongside clearly political organizations to support–even headline–partisan political causes. UFD’s funding sources and its official registration status are not available online. However, several of its partner groups are well-known recipients of funding from progressive, dark-money organizations such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The Sixteen Thirty Fund received $91 million in 2020 from another progressive group called Arabella Advisors, which pulled in $1.6 billion in funding in 2020. Arabella Advisors, through the Sixteen Thirty Fund, spent $44 million in the 2020 elections in addition to funding progressive news network States Newsroom. AFFT previously reported that Arabella Advisors also funded a unionization effort in Congress through the work of an organization called Demand Progress Education Fund.