Wednesday 17 August 2022 08:28 PM Former Republican candidate for Minnesota governor compares new public school ... trends now

A former candidate for Minnesota governor compared the deal between the Minneapolis public schools and teachers union - which promotes laying off white teachers ahead of those of color - to racist Jim Crow-era laws.

Former Republican candidate Kendall Qualls called the deal 'repugnant' on Fox and Friends this morning, characterizing it as 'unamerican.'

'It's just repugnant,' Qualls, who is black, said, 'You it you think about the discrimination that we faced in this country back in the 50's and 60's, it was wrong then. It's wrong now regardless of who is the victim it's wrong. And we shouldn't stand for it as a country.'

The deal was struck between Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers union after a two week strike spearheaded by union president Greta Callahan last spring. 

It states that instead of teacher layoffs or relocations being decided based on seniority – as is typical – schools can ignore that protocol and dismiss senior staff members if otherwise a teacher of color would be laid off.

Also speaking on Fox and Friends was Kofi Montzka, a Minnesota attorney who is also black. She said the new policy would only foster more discrimination.

'You cannot solve past discrimination with more discrimination. Racism in and of itself is evil, it's wrong, and it's illegal,' Montzka said, 'These policies, no matter what their intent, make it look like we are stupid and dumb and we can't compete in the marketplace, and make people more racist and life harder for me and my kids and people who look like me.'

Kendall also pointed out the policy closely reflected ideas in author Ibram X. Kendi's book How to Be an Antiracist, which Qualls said calls for new and future discrimination to make up for past discrimination.

'It's an infinity Loop of evil, it's unamerican, and it's really in a place where get no forgiveness. Any forgiveness at all,' Qualls said, 'That's not what we stand for as a country and we need to fight back against it.'

Qualls' and Montzka's comments as the the Minneapolis school board defended the new deal, which it said was being used to 'remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination.'

'Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,' it said in a statement to the Washington Times.  

Many have called the deal unconstitutional, and accused it of addressing past racism with more racism.

It reads: 'If excessing 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.'

The prioritizing of teachers of color over senior educators may also apply to re-hiring after layoff.

The move was met with a swift backlash, with an economics professor branding it 'racism in action.' 

Constitutional Lawyer Hans Bader characterized the deal as unconstitutional in an editorial in Liberty Unyielding on Sunday, saying the 'race-based layoff provision' violated portions of the Civil Rights Act.  

'When it comes to termination an employer can't racially discriminate even against whites,' Bader wrote, 'The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1996 that a school district can’t consider race even as a tie-breaker, in deciding who to lay off, even to promote diversity.'

Republicans representative to the Minnesota House of Representatives Jeremy Munson said on Facebook that while he was never a supporter of protecting employees exclusively based on seniority, the union's deal was 'racist.'  

'The Minneapolis teachers Union has taken a racist approach and agreed to protect your job based on your skin color, over your job performance or seniority,' he wrote, 'I don't know who needs to hear this, but racist employment contracts have no place in our society.'

In the comments on Munson's post one user quipped, 'Sounds like discrimination lawsuits are on the horizon.'

Other users on social media said they were inflamed and unsettled by the deal, with one saying it 'did not sit well with me.'

'All I can say is wow. All of my teacher friends, how does this sit with you?' wrote Anthony Dunne in a Facebook post, 'Looking from the outside in, this does not sit well with me. We are hiring and firing based upon skin color. So in my simplified view point, fighting past racism with new racism.'

Dinah Salman warned teachers in a Facebook post that Minneapolis schools would not protect them no matter how long they'd been teaching in the system.    

'If you're white, and you work in the Minneapolis public schools, know that your Union will not protect you from layoffs in spite of your seniority,' she wrote, 'This is racism. It's also unconstitutional.'

The contract states: 'The District shall deprioritize the more senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population, in order to recall a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers.'

Both school district and teachers' union leaders say this makes the city one of the only in the country that does what's called 'seniority-disrupting.'  

The agreement could prove important very soon, given that the district is likely to cut jobs because of budget reductions due to lower enrollments, according to ABC News 4.  

The new contract also calls for the development of 'anti-bias, anti-racist' staff advisory councils.  

They are supposed to focus, according to the contract,

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