The new teacher contract in the Minneapolis Public School system says that when layoffs occur white teachers must be fired first. Photo courtesy Police Tribune.
White teachers must be laid off or reassigned before “educators of color” should public schools need to reduce staff. So says a teachers union contract in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) system, according to an article by Evan Stambaugh in AlphaNews.
The news report says that the “the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS struck a deal on March 25 to end a 14-day teacher strike, the two sides drew up and ratified a new collective bargaining agreement complete with various proposals.”
That “deal” included a proposal concerned with “educators of color protections.” The agreement states that “if a non-white teacher is subject to excess, MPS must excess a white teacher with the “next least” seniority.“
The teacher agreement is a racial quota system which beginning in the “Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle”. It states that “if a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population.”
According to the United Federation of Teachers, “excessing” means “reducing staff in a particular school when there is a reduction in the number of available positions in a title or license area in that school.”
Additionally, the agreement says that non-white teachers, as well as those working in various programs, “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order.” The agreement also prioritizes the reinstatement of teachers from “underrepresented populations” over white teachers.
The “deal” states that the measure is “to remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination by the District.” The policy agreement makes note that “Past discrimination by the District disproportionately impacted the hiring of underrepresented teachers in the District, as compared to the relevant labor market and the community, and resulted in a lack of diversity of teachers.”
In all industries this writer is aware of whenever layoffs occur, those with seniority and work are the first to stay. The school district policy has a “seniority-disrupting language” of the agreement that is unique and one of the first we’ve heard of in the country. The new agreement adds a racial component to hiring and firing.
Senior trial counsel at the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC), James Dickey, agrees that the racial component violates both the Minnesota and United States Constitutions.
Dickey said the agreement “openly discriminates against white teachers based only on the color of their skin, and not their seniority or merit.” He continued that “teachers and taxpayers who oppose government-sponsored racism like this should stand up against it.”
The Midwest lawyer asked “any… taxpayer or teacher who opposes this racial preference system” to send the UMLC an email.
Though some may claim racial discrimination, reality is different. Racial discrimination has been widely removed from society as a whole and is rarely seen in 2022.
Michael Reed is Publisher of The Standard newspaper, print and online, and TheStandardSC YouTube channel where many video reports may be found. Please share freely and donate to The Standard on this page to assure the continued availability of news that is ignored too often by the dominant media.
Please “like”, comment, share with a friend, and donate to support The Standard on this page.
RSS - Posts