WASHINGTON—Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and AFT higher education leaders (full list below) on the white supremacist actions in Charlottesville, Va.:
“We are angered and heartbroken by the largest open mobilization of white supremacists in the United States in decades. We grieve the murder of Heather Heyer and the injury of other peaceful protestors against racism and anti-Semitism who, numbering in the thousands, courageously exercised their First Amendment rights in Charlottesville this weekend.
“At the same time, we are sick with the knowledge that the racist uprising they protested is of a piece with a long history of racist ideology and terrorism that has afflicted every region of our beloved country.
“There are no shortcuts to reconciling that past; the realities of it are present at every turn. Charlottesville’s statue of Robert E. Lee is a memorial to one part of that history; the Confederate flags carried by racist demonstrators this weekend are another.
Though conscious of this history, we know that peaceful protestors against racist hatred—including our colleagues among the faculty, staff and students at the University of Virginia—are another part of that story. This weekend, those protestors did the work of bending the arc of history toward justice. We send them our solidarity and our support, our admiration for their bravery, and our commitment that we will be with them throughout whatever is to come.
“We remind President Trump that, as president, he automatically has a role in the long national dispute over race and racism, and whether and how the federal government will use its power in response. When he fails to repudiate immediately the support of David Duke, when he rails against immigrants, when he fails to properly name and condemn racist violence, when he says there is fault on “many sides”— Trump takes the wrong side in this history.
“We enjoin President Trump and his administration to take this opportunity to correct their course. They must reflect on their role in normalizing racism through statement and policy, and on their responsibility in creating the sense of moral license that enabled racist terrorism to manifest itself in the streets of Charlottesville and on the grounds of the University of Virginia. They must denounce white supremacy and white supremacist terrorism in the strongest terms.
“We recommit ourselves, and call on our fellow AFT members—including the nearly 250,000 members of our Higher Education division—to recommit themselves to repudiating racism and white supremacy. As teachers, public servants and unionists in this country, we have a special responsibility to struggle for racial justice.
“Most importantly, we call upon the president, state elected officials, and all those in positions with the power to do so, to enforce the law, protect Americans who justifiably fear racist violence, and investigate these events and bring the perpetrators of racist hate crimes to justice.”
Signed By:
Members of the AFT Higher Education PPC:
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The AFT represents 1.6 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.