Teacher-union head slammed for comparing school-choice backers to segregationists

Teachers’ union chief Randi Weingarten equated parents who seek alternatives to traditional public schools to segregationists, a comparison that didn’t sit well with conservatives, starting with Sen. Tim Scott.

The South Carolina Republican fired off an email declaring “I’m so sick and tired of liberals, too many of them happening to be white, crying racism every single time they’re losing an argument.”

“I can’t think of anything more racist than teachers’ unions trapping poor Black kids in failing schools in big blue cities,” Mr. Scott said in a Thursday tweet. “Randi Weingarten, you’ve done enough damage.”

Ms. Weingarten said in an interview that school-choice advocates like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman have used the “same words” as 1950s-era segregationists, namely “choice” and “parental rights.”

“Those same words that you heard in terms of wanting segregation post-Brown v. Board of Education, those same words you hear today,” said Ms. Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union.

Her comments came during a blogcast interview posted Tuesday with Seth D. Harris, senior fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University.

Ms. Weingarten credited the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center with connecting the dots for her.

“I was kind of gobsmacked when I was talking to Southern Poverty Law Center and they showed me the same words — choice, parental rights — and attempt to divide parents versus teachers,” she said. “At that point it was White parents versus other parents. But it’s the same kind of words.”

Of course, supporters of school vouchers aren’t the only ones calling for “choice” — think advocates for expanded abortion access — but Ms. Weingarten wasn’t done.

“They want to have basically a Christian ideology, their particular Christian ideology,  dominate the country, as opposed to a country that was born on the freedom of the exercise of religion,” she said.

🚨🚨Randi Weingarten likened parental rights and school choice advocates to segregationists:

She says the words “choice” and “parental rights” are the same kind of words that were used in reaction to school desegregation by opponents of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. pic.twitter.com/XDvP12pWbU

— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) September 13, 2023

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, accused her of “Christian bashing.”

“The subject under discussion had nothing to do with religion, so it tells us volumes about Weingarten that she would indict Christians, without cause,” said Mr. Donohue in a Thursday statement.

Ms. Weingarten and other union officials have long fought against school vouchers, charter schools, and other options to traditional public schools, accusing them of seeking to bring about the “end of public education as we know it.”

Mr. Donohue added that “Weingarten should resign.”

“The hatred that she has for millions of school choice and parental rights advocates — especially those who are Christian — disqualifies her from serving in any public role,” he said.

Ms. Weingarten stressed that she wasn’t describing most parents, but rather “a small group of extremists.”

Nicki Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, noted that her organization has filed complaints against schools that separate students by race “in the name of ‘social justice.’”