The Trump administration’s efforts to rein in diversity, equity, and inclusion policies plaguing public schools suffered a setback last month when judges in three states ruled in favor of advocacy groups defending the status quo. In one complaint, the American Federation of Teachers claimed the Trump administration policy change “will chill speech and expression.”
As a recently retired teacher who was a member of the union for decades, color me skeptical of the union’s commitment to the First Amendment. When I spoke against a union-approved DEI program and came under fire from school officials for my opinion, the union hung me out to dry.
Nineteen states, including my home state of Connecticut, followed the teachers’ union’s lead by suing the Department of Education over its plan to condition federal school funding on an end to DEI. The state coalition similarly claims that Trump’s policy change “threaten[s] to chill … speech[.]” But in my case, Connecticut school officials made it clear they can and will silence any speech they don’t like.
Such rank hypocrisy may not affect outcomes in court, but it should alert voters and teachers that when it comes to DEI, those cloaking themselves in the mantle of free speech view it as a one-way street.
This past fall, I ended a 35-year career teaching and training students in Hartford Public Schools. In that time, I successfully worked with kids from nearly every ethnic background.
But then I was told minority students couldn’t learn from me because I didn’t share their skin color, and that as a male I could not effectively teach female students. My privilege and implicit biases, according to DEI indoctrination, made me inadequate for the job — and possibly even a threat to the success of the children I thought I was helping.
What had changed? Not me. In 2017, new school administrators brought with them a race-focused agenda and sought to implement it through classroom teachers. They enlisted the Hartford Federation of Teachers, a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, to support their new direction.
I already considered the union to be ineffective in its duty to protect and advocate for teachers. Although I had once received a union award for my role in negotiating a good contract, I resigned my union membership in 2018. I knew that when unions collaborate with agenda-driven government officials, employees suffer.
Then during the pandemic came a district-required “Identity and Privilege” training obviously designed to single out and shame whites, heterosexuals, Christians, and men. I checked every box, so my “privilege” was off the charts. In a post-training discussion, I was asked for my opinion, and I gave it — bluntly but professionally. It wasn’t what training facilitators wanted to hear.
This earned me a multi-month investigation, disciplinary hearing, an official reprimand, mandatory sensitivity training, and a threat that I would be fired if I stepped out of line again. The act of stating my opinion when asked — a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment — resulted in severe professional repercussions for me.
Meanwhile, the union sat back and watched me twist in the wind. The collective bargaining agreement with the district says that only the union can take a grievance, like the one I filed to defend myself, to arbitration. Yet it refused to do so, stepping aside and allowing the district to “chill” my speech and therefore that of other teachers as well.
Unwilling to quietly accept a black mark on my teaching legacy, I filed an unfair labor practice charge against the union with the help of the Fairness Center. In ruling in my favor, Connecticut’s labor board found the union’s arguments “wholly frivolous” and its actions “intentional discrimination.”
That decision held accountable one of the two parties that targeted me for my views on DEI, but it did not undo the wrong done to me, nor did it assure my colleagues they won’t be subjected to the same free-speech crackdown for expressing their opinions. That is why I am currently suing the Hartford school district, to defend my speech rights and to rescind the unwarranted discipline it meted out.
To the union and state officials grandstanding in court as if they were First Amendment defenders, I say, read the Gospel of Matthew and “first take the plank out of your own eye.”
John Grande is a retired public schoolteacher in Connecticut.
