The Patriot Post® · Weingarten's Disparate Impact on American Education
You’d like to think that when a bunch of teachers gather for a conference, they’d talk about educating America’s children. You’d think they’d share the best ideas and techniques so that teachers — and then students — can benefit from the collective wisdom in the room.
But you’d be wrong.
The recent American Federation of Teachers conference in Washington turned into a Democrat Party rally featuring a rash of radical left-wing resolutions and theatrics from union boss Randi Weingarten. She’s the animated far-left lesbian who leads the second-largest teachers’ union, and she seems to view her primary responsibility not as educating kids but as opposing President Donald Trump.
“We plan our conventions years in advance,” she said, “and when we decided to hold this convention in our nation’s capital to coincide with the celebration of America’s founding 250 years ago, who would have thought that the grievances that led to the American Revolution would be so relevant and relatable today?”
Many conservatives could read the Declaration of Independence and ask a similar question, but we believe the largely Democrat-created administrative state is to blame. “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance,” one of the Declaration’s complaints says. If the Department of Education doesn’t generally exemplify that, what does?
I’ll come back to the DOE later.
Next, Weingarten railed against the supposed “oligarchy” led by, without naming him, Elon Musk and other wealthy entrepreneurs. She claimed they have the power to “buy elections” and “undermine democracy.” If that’s not what the Leftmedia decries as “election denial,” what is?
She praised the original Democratic Socialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took Woodrow Wilson’s administrative state to new heights of government control. “In an earlier period of extreme wealth inequality,” she said, “the country elected FDR, and his New Deal programs lifted millions of Americans out of poverty.” That’s false. As even many left-wing historians now admit, the New Deal made the Great Depression worse.
“This time, the country elected Donald Trump,” she went on as the crowd booed. “Remember that warning about the barbarians at the gate? Well, the barbarians aren’t at the gate. They are inside, including at the highest levels of government. The president and his cronies are abusing government powers to punish political opponents.”
That’s a great description of Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s administrations.
Anyway, I don’t want to dissect the whole speech, though Weingarten said plenty more worth rebutting. Instead, I want to use her as an example of what’s wrong with America’s public schools.
“The other side has power,” she groused. Well, she and her fellow unionistas have immense power over the next generation of Americans. They’ve had that power for decades, and the miseducation of America’s youth — combined with the Leftmedia’s chokehold on information and Hollywood’s indoctrination as entertainment — explains why the nation keeps “progressing” to the left. Radical leftists control the institutions that drive American life and politics.
“And one more thing: We get s**t done,” she shouted. “My apologies to the children.”
Yes, apologies to the children for far more than her vulgarity. As commentator Gary Bauer notes, “Test scores continue to plummet, and our kids are falling further behind academically. Urban school systems are churning out failure on a massive scale, instead of basic literacy and math.”
Why isn’t Weingarten doing something to change that trajectory? Why isn’t she spending AFT dues on helping children instead of electing Marxists and funding socialist causes? Why is she busy hammering Trump as an “authoritarian” and a “fascist” and selling her idiotic and false fascism book?
With that, let’s get back to the Department of Education. It must really anger Weingarten and her ilk that President Trump’s DOE is making some changes. It certainly seems to anger Washington Post education reporter Laura Meckler. Here’s the first paragraph in her story yesterday:
The Education Department on Thursday killed decades-old rules that have allowed statistical disparities to be used as proof of racial discrimination, the most recent move by the Trump administration to overhaul the government’s enforcement of civil rights law.
She more or less fairly covers the dispute:
The move follows years of conservative complaints about “disparate impact analysis,” which incorporates use of data to show discrimination. Supporters say that discrimination is not always explicit and that data analysis is needed to uncover it. Conservatives say that proving discrimination should require proof that someone intended to treat people differently and argue that when people are being judged by data, they feel pressure to make decisions based on racial quotas.
Indeed, the Sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of administrators who discipline kids based on behavior. If too many minorities are punished — never mind if they offend more often — then the administrators get slapped with the charge of “racism.” If outcomes differ, the race hustlers don’t care about intent to discriminate.
Yet they are committing the logical fallacy of begging the question, assuming the conclusion that needs to be proved. It’s circular reasoning of the kind that true educators would reject, and teach kids to avoid.
The Education Department’s move has been a long time coming. In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order saying that disparate impact is unconstitutional and ordering a rollback of such race-based policies in government. As Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights, explained, “The left’s notion of ‘equity’ should never prevent teachers from keeping their classrooms and students safe. With these changes, schools will be empowered to address classroom issues without fearing the federal government will weaponize antidiscrimination laws.”
How is this all related to Weingarten’s Democrat stump speech? To the Left, everything is about race, class, and gender. Their Marxist critical theory permeates everything, dividing the oppressed from the oppressors and stoking resentment. If the outcome is different for some people — if certain folks are disciplined less, create more wealth, or otherwise succeed — they must be oppressing someone else or unfairly benefiting from that oppression.
I’ll bet Randi Weingarten would call the DOE’s commonsense action “fascism.” You know the old saying: When all you have is a Commie hammer, everyone looks like a Nazi.