Apparently, the Rules Depend on Who’s Reading Them

There’s an old saying: What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Apparently, Washington has added an exception.

Unless the goose belongs to the other political party.

It’s remarkable how quickly politicians discover the importance of fairness, due process, and protecting elections when someone on their side is under investigation. And just as remarkable how quickly those concerns disappear when the investigation involves someone they can’t stand.

Think about three dates.

October 28, 2016.

October 2, 2024.

October 12, 2026.

Three elections. Three very different circumstances. Yet each raises a question we ought to be able to answer without first checking someone’s party affiliation.

Do we believe federal law enforcement should be held to the same standards regardless of who benefits politically?

It sounds simple enough.

But apparently, that’s asking a lot.

The Sixty-Day Rule That Isn’t Quite a Rule

You’ve probably heard politicians talk about the Justice Department’s sixty-day rule as though it’s written in stone.

The way some people tell it, sixty days before an election, investigators are supposed to close their briefcases, turn off the lights, and leave everybody alone until the votes are counted.

That’s not how it works.

There is no blanket federal law that prohibits investigations or court proceedings during those sixty days. What the Justice Department has is a longstanding practice of exercising special caution around elections, along with policies against taking investigative actions for the purpose of affecting an election.

And there’s a good reason for that.

An investigation can be legitimate and still cause enormous political damage. A search, an announcement, or a court filing can dominate the news long before anyone has been convicted of anything.

That doesn’t mean candidates get a free pass.

It means the government needs to be especially careful about how it uses its power.

Which brings us back to 2016.

2016: Eleven Days. One Letter.

Remember James Comey?

On October 28, 2016, just eleven days before Hillary Clinton faced Donald Trump in the presidential election, the FBI director sent a letter to Congress announcing that investigators had discovered additional emails potentially relevant to the Clinton investigation.

He wasn’t announcing that Clinton had committed a crime.

He wasn’t announcing that the FBI had reached a new conclusion.

In fact, investigators hadn’t yet determined whether the emails changed anything.

But that didn’t stop the headlines.

Suddenly, Clinton’s emails were front and center again, right when millions of Americans were preparing to vote.

Then, on November 6, Comey told Congress the review hadn’t changed the FBI’s earlier conclusions.

Two days before the election.

Now, can anyone prove that Comey’s letter cost Clinton the presidency? No. Elections are more complicated than that.

But the Justice Department’s inspector general later criticized Comey’s handling of the matter and his departure from established procedures.

And here’s the part that matters.

Once that letter became a headline, there was no taking it back. The political consequences were already out there.

The FBI couldn’t simply send another letter and expect the public conversation to return to where it had been.

2024: Thirty-Four Days. One Objection.

Fast-forward eight years.

Donald Trump was running for president while facing federal charges connected to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Following the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, Special Counsel Jack Smith submitted a court filing explaining which allegations prosecutors believed could still be pursued.

The filing was initially submitted under seal.

Then, on October 2, 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan authorized the release of a redacted version.

Thirty-four days before Election Day.

Trump was furious.

He called it election interference, arguing that making those allegations public so close to an election could influence voters.

Now, hold on.

There’s an important difference between this and what Comey did in 2016. Smith was responding to a court proceeding, and a federal judge controlled the public release.

That matters. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

But Trump’s complaint wasn’t entirely about the legal procedure. It was about what the public would see and when they would see it.

And that brings us to an interesting question.

If the timing of an investigative disclosure can unfairly hurt Donald Trump, shouldn’t we be just as concerned when another politician faces government action even closer to an election?

Keep that question in mind.

2026: Twenty-Two Days. Why Then?

On October 12, 2026, federal agents searched Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home in Washington, D.C.

The Justice Department confirmed that Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a search warrant authorized by a judge.

Twenty-two days before Election Day.

News organizations reported that the investigation involved allegations concerning immigration paperwork. Omar denied wrongdoing and accused the administration of using federal law enforcement to target political opponents.

Trump said he had nothing to do with the search.

And maybe he didn’t.

But given the history of public attacks against Omar, and the fact that she was running for reelection, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask a few questions.

Why October 12?

What was so urgent?

Was there evidence that might disappear? Was there some investigative reason the search couldn’t have happened earlier? What made that particular moment necessary?

Maybe investigators have good answers. They may well have had reasons the public doesn’t know.

A judge authorized the warrant, and that matters. But a judge’s approval of a search warrant doesn’t, by itself, answer every question about why investigators chose that particular day.

According to The Washington Post, an administration official said the Justice Department consulted its Public Integrity Section before the search and that the attorney general approved it.

That’s relevant information, too.

But I keep coming back to the same question.

In 2024, Trump argued that releasing a court filing thirty-four days before an election was unfair.

So why shouldn’t a search twenty-two days before an election receive serious scrutiny?

I’m not saying the search was illegal.

I’m not saying Omar should be above investigation.

And I’m certainly not suggesting that the date alone proves a political conspiracy.

I’m asking whether the concern about election interference survives when the politician involved is someone Donald Trump doesn’t like.

Because if we take that concern seriously in one election, we ought to take it seriously in the next.

Different Cases. One Standard.

Before somebody rushes to the comments, let me make something clear.

These three cases are not identical.

Comey made a public announcement about an investigation.

Smith submitted a filing in an ongoing court case, and a judge authorized its release.

Federal agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at Omar’s residence.

Different circumstances. Different legal questions. Different people making the decisions.

So no, I’m not claiming all three violated the same rule.

But here’s what I am saying.

We cannot keep changing our definition of acceptable government conduct depending on whose political career might be affected.

If we wanted transparency in 2016, we should want it now.

If we demanded fairness for Trump in 2024, we should demand fairness for Omar in 2026.

And if investigators acted appropriately in any of these cases, we should be willing to acknowledge that, even when the outcome disappoints us.

That shouldn’t be controversial.

A Principle Is Not a Team Jersey

One of the most exhausting things about American politics is watching people switch principles without missing a beat.

When it’s their candidate, they want due process.

When it’s the opposition, they want handcuffs.

When it’s their candidate, allegations aren’t proof.

When it’s the opposition, allegations are apparently enough.

And when the roles reverse, everybody changes jerseys and starts shouting the exact opposite of what they said four years earlier.

Come on.

At some point, we have to decide whether we actually believe the things we say about justice.

Because a principle that only applies to people we like isn’t much of a principle.

It’s a political preference dressed up as one.

The Calendar Doesn’t Prove Motive

Here’s where we need to be careful.

Eleven days. Thirty-four days. Twenty-two days.

Those numbers are worth examining. But they don’t tell the whole story.

A date doesn’t prove political motivation. It doesn’t tell us whether investigators had sufficient evidence or whether a particular action could reasonably have waited.

For that, we need facts.

And I know facts aren’t nearly as exciting as a good conspiracy theory.

But we can’t demand that the government respect due process while abandoning it ourselves whenever an accusation suits our politics.

We should ask hard questions.

We should expect honest answers.

And we should be willing to follow the evidence, even when it leads somewhere inconvenient.

When the Headline Becomes the Verdict

There’s another reason all of this matters.

An investigation doesn’t have to end in a conviction to affect an election.

Sometimes it doesn’t even have to result in charges.

Think about how quickly these things happen.

An investigation becomes a headline. The headline becomes a talking point. The talking point becomes a campaign ad.

Before anyone has had their day in court, voters have already been invited to make up their minds.

And even if the allegations eventually fall apart, the damage may already be done.

That’s the danger.

Not that politicians might be investigated. They should be, when the evidence warrants it.

The danger is that the machinery of federal law enforcement is powerful enough to shape public opinion simply by being set in motion.

That power demands restraint, independence, and accountability.

No matter who occupies the White House.

One Last Question

Let me leave you with this.

Suppose the parties were reversed.

Suppose the politician under investigation was someone you supported.

Would you still defend the timing?

Would you still insist that a warrant or a court filing settled every concern?

Would you still wait for evidence before deciding whether someone had done something wrong?

Or would you suddenly have a lot more questions?

That’s the test.

Comment

Not whether we can make a convincing argument when our political opponents are involved. We’ve gotten pretty good at that.

The test is whether we’re willing to make the same argument when doing so is uncomfortable.

Different cases may deserve different legal conclusions.

But fairness, independence, evidence, and accountability shouldn’t depend on who’s running for office.

The Constitution doesn’t change with the election calendar.

Neither should our principles.

And that brings us to something even more troubling.

What happens when an accusation becomes politically useful before anyone knows whether it’s true?

What happens when the investigation itself becomes more valuable to a campaign than any eventual conviction?

Because sometimes an investigation doesn’t merely affect an election.

Sometimes the investigation becomes the campaign.

COMING NEXT: PART FOUR

WHEN AN INVESTIGATION BECOMES THE CAMPAIGN

When the accusation becomes the message, does the verdict even matter?

So, You’re an American. Or Are You?

I was always under the impression that once you became an American citizen, you were an American citizen.

Apparently, I missed the fine print.

You see, I thought the whole point of naturalization was that, after completing the process, satisfying the requirements, and taking the oath, you became a full-fledged member of this country.

Not a guest.

Not a visitor.

Not an American on a trial subscription.

An American.

But lately, listening to the political conversation surrounding Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, I’ve found myself wondering whether some people believe citizenship comes with an expiration date.

Or perhaps a political loyalty test.

Because when an American citizen becomes the subject of accusations about immigration paperwork from decades ago, and those accusations become intertwined with attacks on her political identity, we ought to ask a question that reaches far beyond one member of Congress.

Who gets to decide who belongs in America?

And just as importantly, who gets to decide when someone no longer does?

A Child Doesn’t Choose Her Immigration Paperwork

Let’s begin with a little history.

Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia in 1982. Her family fled the country’s civil war, spent years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and arrived in the United States in 1995.

She was approximately twelve years old.

Twelve.

At twelve, most children are concerned about school, friendships, and figuring out where they fit in.

They’re not sitting around the kitchen table developing immigration strategies.

They’re not interpreting federal naturalization statutes.

And they’re certainly not deciding which government forms their parents should submit.

Omar became a naturalized American citizen in 2000.

She eventually became a member of Congress.

Now, allegations concerning immigration records associated with her childhood have become part of the political conversation.

Here’s where I have a problem with the way these stories are sometimes presented.

An allegation about paperwork is not proof of fraud.

A discrepancy is not automatically a crime.

And a child being connected to a document does not establish that the child knowingly participated in wrongdoing.

Could the government investigate credible evidence of immigration fraud?

Absolutely.

Should the government investigate legitimate violations of federal law?

Of course.

But shouldn’t we first establish what happened before deciding what it means?

Who prepared the documents? What was allegedly inaccurate? Was the information material to obtaining citizenship? Who knew about it? What evidence supports the accusation?

Those aren’t technicalities.

Those are the questions that separate an investigation from a political accusation.

And I would hope that, regardless of whether we like the person being investigated, we could agree that the distinction matters.

There’s a Word for Taking Away Citizenship

It’s called denaturalization.

And before anyone starts imagining the president sitting behind the Resolute Desk with a giant rubber stamp marked NO LONGER AMERICAN, we should probably discuss how it actually works.

Because contrary to what some political rhetoric might suggest, the president cannot simply decide that someone is no longer an American citizen.

There is a law.

There is a process.

And there are courts.

Under federal law, naturalization can be revoked in certain circumstances, including when citizenship was illegally procured or obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.

Those words matter.

Material.

Willful.

Illegally procured.

Notice what’s missing?

“Disagrees with the president.”

“Criticizes the administration.”

“Was born somewhere else.”

“Has become politically inconvenient.”

None of those appears as a legal ground for denaturalization.

The government must establish its case under the applicable legal standards.

In civil denaturalization proceedings, the burden of proof is demanding. Criminal proceedings have their own protections.

And a search warrant, an allegation, or an angry social media post is not a judicial finding that someone’s citizenship is invalid.

The Supreme Court reinforced the importance of these distinctions in Maslenjak v. United States in 2017, when it addressed the relationship between false statements and the acquisition of citizenship in criminal denaturalization proceedings.

In other words, the law doesn’t permit every alleged mistake to become an automatic ticket out of the country.

And thank goodness for that.

Because if citizenship could be undone simply because someone in power wanted it undone, what exactly would citizenship be worth?

American Is American. Isn’t It?

Let me ask another question.

Is a person who becomes an American citizen through naturalization less American than someone born in the United States?

I don’t believe so.

And while the Constitution makes certain distinctions—most famously the natural-born-citizen requirement for the presidency—naturalized citizens generally possess the same fundamental constitutional rights as citizens by birth.

They can vote.

They can serve in Congress.

They can raise families, establish businesses, join unions, teach our children, and contribute to every part of American society.

They can criticize the government.

That last one is important.

Because freedom of speech doesn’t become less valuable because someone was born outside the country.

In fact, there is something particularly American about someone who came here, became a citizen, and then exercised the right to challenge the very government that granted that citizenship.

Isn’t that part of the democratic promise?

You don’t have to agree with the president.

You don’t have to applaud the administration.

You don’t even have to be polite about its policies.

You have the right to speak.

And that right does not come with a requirement that you first prove your political loyalty.

We’ve Been Down This Road Before

Now, if you’re thinking that this conversation about who belongs in America sounds familiar, there’s a reason.

It is.

We’ve been having versions of it for more than two hundred years.

Let’s revisit a little history.

In 1790, Congress passed the first federal naturalization law.

And who was eligible?

Free white persons who met the statute’s requirements.

That’s right.

The country founded on the idea that all men were created equal established a naturalization system that explicitly excluded people on the basis of race.

Apparently, equality had some exclusions.

Then came the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and an era in which Chinese immigrants faced severe legal restrictions on immigration and naturalization.

In 1922, the Supreme Court decided Ozawa v. United States, ruling that a Japanese immigrant was ineligible for naturalization under the racial restrictions then in place.

A year later, in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the Court reached a similar result concerning an Indian immigrant.

Think about what those cases tell us.

For generations, the government didn’t simply ask whether someone wanted to become an American.

It asked whether they fit the government’s preferred definition of who could become one.

And that definition was shaped by race.

Those laws have changed.

Congress ultimately removed racial restrictions on naturalization.

But the history hasn’t disappeared.

And neither has the underlying temptation to divide people into those who supposedly belong and those whose belonging remains open to question.

Now, I’m not suggesting that a modern investigation into alleged immigration fraud is legally equivalent to the racial exclusion laws of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

That would ignore important differences.

But I am suggesting that history gives us good reason to pay attention when the language of citizenship becomes the language of exclusion.

Because we’ve seen what happens when the government begins treating belonging as something reserved for the favored few.

And it wasn’t one of America’s finer chapters.

A Passport Shouldn’t Come With an Asterisk

Imagine spending twenty-five or thirty years believing you are an American.

You work.

You pay taxes.

You vote.

You raise your children.

You participate in your community.

Maybe you teach in one of our public schools.

Maybe you serve in the military.

Maybe you become a member of Congress.

And then someone begins questioning whether the citizenship you’ve held for decades was valid in the first place.

Now imagine that the person being questioned is a political opponent of the president.

Does that automatically make the investigation improper?

No.

But does it make the independence of the investigation especially important?

You better believe it.

Because the Justice Department is supposed to enforce the law, not settle political scores.

And if the government has credible evidence, it should present that evidence through the proper legal process.

But if politicians use unresolved allegations to convince the public that someone doesn’t belong here, we’re no longer having just a conversation about immigration law.

We’re having a conversation about power.

And there’s a difference.

One asks whether the law was violated.

The other asks whether the person should be accepted as an American at all.

Those are not the same question.

The Big Lie Doesn’t Always Begin With a Big Statement

Sometimes it begins with a question.

Was the paperwork legitimate?

Did someone lie?

Should their citizenship be investigated?

Those can be legitimate questions when supported by credible evidence.

But watch what happens when questions are repeated as though they have already been answered.

A suspicion becomes a headline.

A headline becomes a talking point.

A talking point becomes something people swear they heard was proven.

And before long, the public is debating punishment without ever establishing guilt.

Sound familiar?

It should.

We’ve seen the power of repetition in American politics.

And we’ve seen how difficult it can be to correct a false impression once that impression has become part of someone’s political identity.

That’s why I keep coming back to a simple principle.

An investigation is not a conviction.

And an allegation about naturalization is not a judicial determination that citizenship should be revoked.

Those distinctions may not make for exciting political slogans.

But they are essential to the rule of law.

Here’s What Really Concerns Me

I don’t expect everyone to agree with Ilhan Omar.

I don’t agree with every position taken by every elected official, either.

That’s democracy.

We debate.

We disagree.

We organize.

We vote.

And sometimes we vote people out of office.

That’s how the system is supposed to work.

But I become concerned when political disagreement starts blending into questions about whether someone deserves to remain a citizen.

Because citizenship isn’t supposed to be a reward for good political behavior.

It isn’t a prize the president gets to hand out to supporters and take away from critics.

And it certainly isn’t something that should depend on whether an American citizen was born in Minnesota or Mogadishu.

There is a legal process for challenging naturalization.

Use it when the evidence and law justify it.

Respect the rights of the person involved.

And let the courts decide.

That shouldn’t be controversial.

It should be the minimum standard.

And That Brings Us Back to the Calendar

Here’s the part I don’t want us to forget.

Part One raised questions about the reported timing of federal investigative activity involving Omar in October 2026, just weeks before the midterm elections.

Those reports require reliable verification before their details can be treated as established facts.

But the broader question about election-year investigative standards remains important regardless of the outcome of any particular allegation.

In 2016, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress of additional emails potentially relevant to the Clinton investigation just eleven days before the presidential election.

In 2024, a federal court made public a major filing in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election-interference case involving Donald Trump approximately thirty-four days before Election Day.

These were different proceedings, with different legal circumstances.

And that is precisely why we need to examine them carefully rather than pretend they’re identical.

But here’s the question.

When federal investigative developments become public during the final weeks of an election, what standards should govern the timing, the disclosures, and the conduct of the officials involved?

Should those standards change depending on the political party of the person being investigated?

Should the public be expected to accept one explanation when a Republican is involved and another when a Democrat is involved?

Or should we expect consistency?

Because if the rules only matter when our preferred candidate benefits from them, then they’re not really principles.

They’re conveniences.

And constitutional government cannot survive on convenience alone.

One Last Question

When a person becomes an American citizen, what exactly are we promising them?

Are we promising that they belong?

That the Constitution protects them?

That they can disagree with their government without having their American identity treated as a political bargaining chip?

Or are we promising that they belong only as long as the people in power find them acceptable?

I know which America I believe in.

And I suspect most Americans, regardless of political party, would agree that citizenship deserves more protection than a campaign talking point.

Because the moment we begin treating citizenship as a privilege that can be threatened for political reasons, we weaken the meaning of citizenship for everyone.

Not just immigrants.

Not just naturalized Americans.

Everyone.

The Constitution doesn’t exist to protect only the people we like. It exists to protect the rights of people even when those in power don’t like them.

And that is exactly why the next part of this series matters.

Because if the standards governing federal investigations change depending on whose name appears on the paperwork, then we have another problem entirely.

And it’s one that takes us right back to the calendar.

Eleven days. Thirty-four days. Twenty-two days—if the reported 2026 event is verified.

Different cases.

Different people.

One question.

One standard?

COMING NEXT: PART THREE

THE SIXTY-DAY DOUBLE STANDARD

Comey. Clinton. Trump. Jack Smith. And the question of whether the rules change depending on who’s being investigated.

That’s all.

Twenty-two days before Americans head to the polls on November 3, reports emerged that federal agents had searched the Washington, D.C., home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Not a routine campaign controversy.

Not another heated exchange between political opponents.

A reported federal criminal investigation involving the citizenship records of a sitting member of Congress.

Now, I want you to think about that for a moment.

A woman who came to this country as a refugee, became an American citizen, and went on to serve in the United States House of Representatives is reportedly facing federal scrutiny over immigration paperwork dating back more than twenty-five years.

And the investigative activity is alleged to have occurred just three weeks before voters decide whether to return her to Congress.

Coincidence?

Possibly.

Legitimate investigative necessity?

Also possible.

But should the American public be expected to ignore the timing?

Absolutely not.

Because there’s something we ought to have learned by now.

An investigation doesn’t have to end in a conviction to become a political weapon. Sometimes all it takes is a headline.

And that’s where this story begins.

I. FIRST, LET’S TALK ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Before anyone starts drawing conclusions, let’s establish something.

A federal investigation is not a conviction.

A search warrant is not an indictment.

And an allegation is not proof.

Those distinctions matter.

They matter when the person being investigated is a Republican.

They matter when the person being investigated is a Democrat.

And they matter when the person being investigated is someone the president has spent years publicly criticizing.

The reports surrounding Omar describe an investigation involving immigration records and possible discrepancies in documents connected to her citizenship.

But the public needs more than an allegation.

We need to know what the government has actually established.

What evidence supported the investigation?

What was the legal basis for the reported search?

What materials were sought?

What materials were recovered?

And perhaps most importantly, what has the government demonstrated those materials prove?

Because the mere existence of an investigation cannot become a substitute for evidence.

If Omar committed a crime, investigate it.

If prosecutors have sufficient evidence, bring the appropriate charges.

And if those allegations are proven in court, hold her accountable.

But if the evidence doesn’t support the accusations, the public deserves to know that too.

That’s how the system is supposed to work.

The problem arises when the accusation becomes the story and the evidence becomes an afterthought.

II. WHAT WERE FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS LOOKING FOR?

According to the allegations described in the earlier reporting, investigators were examining whether information associated with Omar’s immigration and citizenship records was accurate.

The reported questions involve documents dating back to when Omar was a teenager.

Let’s be clear about why that matters.

We are not talking about an alleged incident from last week.

We are talking about paperwork connected to a family’s immigration history more than a quarter-century ago.

Omar came to the United States after her family fled Somalia’s civil war.

She became an American citizen in 2000.

Her father, who died in 2020, reportedly handled important portions of the family’s immigration paperwork.

Now, the government certainly has a legitimate interest in investigating fraud when credible evidence exists.

But the passage of time raises questions.

Who completed the documents?

What information was allegedly incorrect?

Was the discrepancy material to the citizenship determination?

Was it intentional?

And what evidence establishes that Omar personally knew about or participated in any alleged wrongdoing?

Those are not minor details.

They are central to determining whether a crime occurred.

There is a difference between an inaccurate document and a fraudulent one.

There is a difference between something a parent may have done and something a child knowingly participated in.

And there is a difference between investigating a suspicion and proving an accusation.

If the government cannot establish those distinctions, the public should not be encouraged to ignore them.

III. WHAT DID INVESTIGATORS ACTUALLY FIND?

Here is where I think we need to be particularly careful.

There is a tendency in American politics to treat the execution of a search warrant as proof that the person being searched must have done something wrong.

That’s not how the law works.

A search warrant allows investigators to look for evidence.

It does not establish that evidence of a crime was found.

A seized phone doesn’t prove wrongdoing.

A confiscated computer doesn’t prove wrongdoing.

A box of documents carried out of someone’s residence doesn’t prove wrongdoing.

What matters is what those materials actually establish.

And that requires examination, authentication, and legal scrutiny.

We have seen what happens when the public skips those steps.

A person is accused.

The accusation dominates the news.

Political commentators repeat it.

Social media amplifies it.

And before anyone knows whether the allegation is supported, millions of people have already formed an opinion.

Then, if the investigation ends without charges, the explanation rarely receives the same attention.

The original accusation remains lodged in the public consciousness.

That’s the danger.

The headline arrives immediately. The truth may take months.

And elections don’t wait months.

They happen on a date certain.

Which brings us back to those twenty-two days.

IV. WHY DOES THE TIMING MATTER?

Now, here’s where this gets interesting.

The Justice Department has long recognized that investigative activity involving political candidates can affect elections.

That’s why federal prosecutors and investigators operate under policies intended to prevent law enforcement authority from being used to influence electoral outcomes.

You’ve probably heard people refer to the Justice Department’s sixty-day rule.

Let’s clarify what that means.

It is not a federal statute automatically prohibiting investigations during the final sixty days before an election.

It is an informal practice associated with the department’s broader obligation to avoid taking investigative steps for the purpose of affecting an election.

There can be legitimate reasons to act during that period.

Evidence might be at risk.

A witness might be in danger.

An urgent investigative development might require immediate action.

But that is precisely why the timing deserves scrutiny.

If investigators had a legitimate reason to act on October 12, that reason matters.

If there was an emergency, what was it?

If new evidence emerged, what changed?

If documents had been in existence for more than twenty-five years, what made the final three weeks before an election the appropriate moment for a highly visible investigative action?

Those questions do not presume misconduct.

They demand accountability.

And accountability should not depend on which political party controls the Justice Department.

V. WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE

If you’re wondering why I’m making such a big deal about the timing, let’s revisit a little American political history.

Remember October 2016?

Eleven days before the presidential election, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that investigators had discovered additional emails potentially relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Eleven days.

The announcement dominated national headlines.

Clinton’s campaign was forced to respond to renewed questions about an investigation that had previously concluded without a recommendation for criminal charges.

The FBI subsequently determined that the additional emails did not change its earlier conclusion.

But by then, the political conversation had already been affected.

The Justice Department’s inspector general later criticized Comey’s handling of the matter, although the review did not establish that political bias motivated his decisions.

The lesson?

Federal investigative actions can have electoral consequences even when they do not produce criminal charges.

Now fast-forward to October 2024.

A federal judge unsealed a filing in special counsel Jack Smith’s election-interference case against Donald Trump approximately thirty-four days before the presidential election.

Trump objected.

He accused federal authorities of election interference and argued that investigative developments should not be used to influence voters so close to Election Day.

There were significant legal differences between that judicial filing and the reported Omar investigation.

We should acknowledge them.

But here’s the question that cannot be ignored.

If thirty-four days before an election was too close when Trump was the subject, what standard should apply to investigative activity involving one of his political opponents twenty-two days before an election?

That’s not a question of Republican versus Democrat.

It’s a question of consistency.

Either we believe that federal law enforcement should exercise caution when its actions may affect an election, or we don’t.

We cannot defend one standard for politicians we support and another for politicians we oppose.

That isn’t justice.

That’s partisanship dressed up

VI. THE ORANGE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Now let’s address what everybody is thinking.

Donald Trump has a long history of publicly attacking Ilhan Omar.

He has criticized her politics, questioned her place in American political life, and repeatedly made her a target of national political controversy.

That history is relevant.

But it is not proof that Trump personally ordered a search.

And I’m not going to pretend it is.

If we’re going to demand evidence from the federal government, we have to hold ourselves to the same standard.

Suspicion is not proof simply because we find it politically plausible.

Still, a president’s public rhetoric doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

The president appoints senior officials.

His administration establishes enforcement priorities.

And federal agencies operate within the executive branch.

So when a prominent political opponent becomes the subject of a highly visible investigation shortly before an election, questions about institutional independence are reasonable.

Who made the decision?

What evidence supported it?

What safeguards were followed?

Were political considerations excluded?

Those are questions Congress and the public have a legitimate interest in examining.

The Justice Department should be able to enforce the law without fear or favor.

That means it must be willing to investigate wrongdoing by political allies.

It must be willing to investigate wrongdoing by political opponents.

And it must be able to demonstrate that the difference between those investigations is the evidence, not the politics.

VII. THE HEADLINE MAY BE THE POINT—EVEN WHEN THE INVESTIGATION IS LEGITIMATE

There is something else we need to understand.

An investigation can be legitimate and still be politically exploited.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Investigators may be acting in good faith.

A judge may have properly authorized a search.

The evidence may justify continued examination.

And political actors may still use the publicity to advance a campaign narrative.

Think about how quickly an allegation can become political messaging.

First comes the investigation.

Then the headline.

Then the commentary.

Then the social media posts.

Before long, the public conversation is no longer about what investigators have established.

It’s about what people have been led to suspect.

And suspicion can be politically useful.

Especially when it concerns immigration.

Especially when it concerns citizenship.

Especially when it concerns a politician whose background has already been the subject of years of public attacks.

That’s why we need to distinguish between the investigation itself and the political uses made of it.

We cannot assume investigators acted improperly merely because the investigation produces political consequences.

But neither should we ignore those consequences.

A legitimate investigation should seek the truth. A political campaign may only need the accusation.

That distinction matters.

And it matters most when voters are preparing to cast their ballots.

VIII. TWENTY-TWO DAYS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

Let me end where we started.

Twenty-two days.

That is the period between October 12 and November 3.

The reported investigation involving Ilhan Omar raises serious questions about federal authority, electoral timing, and the responsibility of government institutions to remain independent of partisan influence.

Those questions deserve answers.

Not because Omar is entitled to special protection.

Not because Democrats should be immune from investigation.

And not because every action taken by the Trump administration should automatically be presumed improper.

They deserve answers because the same rules should apply to everyone.

If the government has evidence, present it through the appropriate legal process.

If investigators acted for legitimate reasons, those reasons should withstand scrutiny.

If allegations are unsubstantiated, the public should not be encouraged to treat them as established facts.

And if political considerations influenced investigative decisions, the American people deserve accountability.

But there is another issue beneath this controversy.

One that goes beyond the timing of a search.

Beyond a congressional election.

Beyond the twenty-two days.

The reported allegations concern whether Ilhan Omar’s American citizenship was legally obtained.

Think about that.

A woman who arrived in this country as a refugee, became an American citizen, and went on to serve in Congress is facing renewed public questions about the legal foundation of that citizenship.

That raises an entirely different set of questions.

Can the federal government revoke naturalized citizenship?

Under what circumstances?

What must it prove?

And what safeguards protect naturalized Americans from having their citizenship challenged without sufficient legal grounds?

Those are not simply questions about Ilhan Omar.

They are questions about what it means to be an American.

And they bring us to the next part of this series.

Because before we can understand the political consequences of questioning someone’s citizenship, we need to understand whether citizenship is a constitutional right protected by law—or a privilege that can be challenged by those who hold power.

COMING NEXT: PART TWO

The next installment of The Big Lie Campaign examines the legal limits of denaturalization, the rights of naturalized citizens, and what the Constitution requires before the government can revoke citizenship.

What respect means when a paraprofessional chooses to stay

For three parts, we have followed a profession as it learned to claim more of itself.

We began with people from communities entering schools that needed what they knew.

We watched those workers turn presence into collective strength and build structures that could endure beyond the people who first created them.

Then we watched another generation inherit that power and direct it toward an economic problem that could no longer remain at the margins.

Each stage changed what was possible.

But none answers the question I want to end this series with.

What if the paraprofessional does not want to become something else?

What if this is not a temporary stop?

What if the title is not a waiting room?

What if years of experience have made someone exceptionally good at being a paraprofessional — and that is precisely the career that person wants?

Then our definition of advancement has to become larger than departure.

The measure of respect for paraprofessionals cannot be how successfully we help them become something else.

It must also include whether a person can choose paraprofessionalism, grow within it, master it, remain in it and retire from it with economic security.

That is the argument of Part Four.

Not against the career ladder.

Not against becoming a teacher.

Not against education, certification, promotion or ambition.

Against the assumption that the only convincing evidence of ambition is leaving.

The career ladder was a victory

Let us begin there.

The career ladder changed lives.

The Career Training Program was created as part of the first paraprofessional contract in 1970 and continues to cover three to six undergraduate credits per semester for eligible paraprofessionals pursuing a bachelor’s degree at participating colleges and universities. Participants taking at least five credits may also qualify for 2.5 hours of weekly release time for study.

That is not something to minimize.

A worker who wants to become a teacher should have a path.

A person who wants a degree should have support.

Someone who discovers another calling should not be trapped by the title in which she began.

Opportunity matters.

Choice matters.

But there is a difference between saying:

You can become a teacher if that is what you want.

and:

You may need to become a teacher if you want a financially sustainable career.

The first expands choice.

The second quietly narrows it.

That is why the career ladder should remain a door.

It should never become an exit sign.

A ladder is valuable because it gives people somewhere else to go. But a profession is valuable because it gives people a reason they might choose to stay.

The title stayed the same. The worker did not.

We have been trained to picture professional growth vertically.

Up.

Promotion.

New title.

Greater authority.

Because that movement is visible, we recognize it immediately as advancement.

But people can also grow deeper into work.

Judgment sharpens.

Instinct develops.

Relationships become more sophisticated.

Patterns that were invisible in year one become obvious in year ten.

A veteran paraprofessional may recognize the first signs that a student is becoming dysregulated.

She may know when a child needs encouragement and when the child first needs quiet.

She may understand a student’s communication system, sensory needs or behavioral supports so well that she notices a change before anyone else in the room.

She may know the family.

The routines.

The history.

The small signals.

A younger colleague may eventually learn all of that too.

But experience has already taught the veteran what no orientation packet can reproduce overnight.

That is expertise.

And expertise does not become less real because the title on the paycheck never changed.

We understand this principle in other professions.

A veteran classroom teacher is not regarded as someone who failed to advance because she never became a principal.

Experience in the classroom can itself represent mastery.

Why should the underlying principle be different for a paraprofessional?

The first-year para and the twenty-fifth-year para may share a title.

They do not share twenty-five years of knowledge.

The title stayed the same. The worker did not.

If our definition of advancement cannot account for that, perhaps the problem is not that the worker failed to advance.

Perhaps our definition of advancement is too small.

The system already recognizes pieces of this

The existing compensation structure already acknowledges, at least in part, that a paraprofessional can become more valuable while remaining a paraprofessional.

The salary schedule contains multiple educational classifications and longevity payments. Effective Sept. 14, 2026, the Teacher Aide base is $32,605. With the under-five-year longevity amount, the schedule lists starting pay at $33,222. At the upper end, the UFT schedule lists total compensation of $56,726 for an Educational Associate B with 15-year longevity, including the $1,000 annual retention bonus.

Education changes compensation.

Longevity changes compensation.

Experience already has economic value.

The Lead Teacher Assistant position makes the principle even clearer. Qualified full-time paraprofessionals with a bachelor’s degree and state Teacher Assistant certification can take on broader instructional responsibilities and receive an additional $5,000. Yet it is an annual position: unless rehired into it for the following year, the worker returns to the previous title and base salary.

So growth inside paraprofessionalism is not some radical idea imported from outside the system.

Pieces of it already exist.

The more interesting question is whether those pieces amount to a fully developed vision of a career.

What would it mean to recognize mastery?

Maybe advancement needs another direction.

Not only upward.

Deeper.

Imagine the principle, not a specific bargaining proposal.

A veteran paraprofessional who mentors someone entering the profession.

A worker with deep expertise supporting autistic students.

A multilingual para whose language and cultural knowledge makes communication with families possible.

Someone highly skilled in behavior support.

Assistive technology.

Mobility.

Instructional intervention.

A paraprofessional who has learned through years of practice how to do something extraordinarily well.

Those people already exist.

Often, schools depend on their knowledge informally.

The question is whether a mature profession should have ways to recognize and transmit it more intentionally.

Mentoring newer workers.

Contributing to professional learning.

Taking on recognized specialized responsibilities.

Helping preserve institutional knowledge inside a school.

Having avenues to lead without first having to leave the title.

This does not require pretending paraprofessionals and teachers perform identical jobs.

They do not.

Different titles carry different responsibilities, credentials and legal duties.

Respect does not require sameness.

It requires taking a profession seriously on its own terms.

A career structure sophisticated enough to recognize mastery gives the institution something too:

a reason for experienced people to remain.

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Schools feel turnover before spreadsheets do

Compensation discussions understandably begin with cost.

Public institutions have budgets.

Collective bargaining involves tradeoffs.

Resources are finite.

But turnover has costs too.

When an experienced paraprofessional leaves, an organizational chart records a vacancy.

A classroom experiences something more complicated.

The student who depended on a familiar routine loses the person who knew it.

The teacher loses a partner who understood the room.

A family may lose an adult who already knew how to communicate with them.

The next worker has to learn what the previous worker already knew.

Experience walks out the door.

The UFT has made recruitment and retention central to its case for higher paraprofessional compensation and for the temporary RESPECT payments. The union says persistent difficulties recruiting and retaining paraprofessionals have contributed to staffing shortages and turnover that affect continuity of student services.

That is the union’s position in an ongoing compensation debate.

But the broader retention question remains worth asking regardless of the particular policy remedy:

What happens when people become highly skilled at work they cannot afford to keep doing?

Low compensation does not make the cost of turnover disappear.

It moves the cost somewhere else.

Onto another worker.

Onto the school.

Onto the family.

Sometimes onto the child.

Economic security is what makes staying a choice

The fifth and final scheduled salary increase under the current DOE-UFT agreement took effect Sept. 14, 2026: 3.5%.

That raise matters.

Every negotiated increase matters.

But percentages operate from whatever salary already exists.

A 3.5% raise on roughly $33,000 produces fewer dollars than 3.5% on $100,000.

That is arithmetic.

It does not, by itself, tell anyone what the correct bargaining formula should be.

Bargaining has to account for multiple titles, fiscal constraints, coalition interests and competing priorities.

But the arithmetic reveals something important:

Equal percentages can preserve unequal starting points.

The UFT argues that the city’s pattern-bargaining structure has disadvantaged lower-paid paraprofessionals and says it intends to seek a permanent, pensionable compensation solution in future negotiations. That is the union’s analysis and bargaining position, rather than an uncontested conclusion about what the appropriate wage-setting system should be.

Whatever approach ultimately emerges at the bargaining table, the career question remains.

A person cannot meaningfully choose between staying and leaving if one path offers a sustainable economic future and the other requires prolonged financial strain.

That is why compensation is not separate from professional choice.

It helps determine whether the choice is real.

Permanent matters because careers accumulate

RESPECT brought urgency to the compensation question.

The enacted payments, if implemented as scheduled, can provide meaningful short-term relief.

The law remains in effect, but its implementation is being challenged in court; the UFT continues to list Jan. 1, 2027, as the first scheduled payment date. The UFT currently lists four $2,500 payment dates in 2027.

But the payments are temporary and non-pensionable. The UFT says its goal is to build on them through collective bargaining and make comparable compensation permanent and pensionable.

That distinction matters enormously in a conversation about careers.

A temporary payment helps now.

Salary accumulates.

Future raises build from salary.

Pensionable earnings follow a worker beyond the last day in the classroom.

Longevity means more when remaining in the profession produces increasing security rather than merely increasing endurance.

The current DOE-UFT contract expires Nov. 28, 2027, and preparation for the next bargaining round is already underway. A record 750 UFT members are participating in the Contract Negotiating Committee, and the union says smaller title- and division-specific groups — including paraprofessionals — will develop priorities particular to their work.

What those negotiations ultimately produce has not been decided.

But there are two questions worth keeping separate.

One is:

What compensation can workers negotiate?

The other is:

What kind of paraprofessional career are we trying to sustain?

The first is a bargaining question.

The second has to help inform it.

A career worth keeping does not require everybody to stay

This argument is not about trapping anyone in paraprofessionalism.

That would merely replace one limitation with another.

Someone who wants to teach should have every opportunity to teach.

Someone who wants a degree should have the opportunity to earn one.

Someone who discovers another career should be free to pursue it.

The point is that staying deserves to be a viable option too.

A career worth keeping does not require everybody to stay. It makes staying possible.

That is different.

And it gets us closer to the meaning of choice.

Because choice only becomes meaningful when more than one path can support a life.

If leaving offers economic security while remaining means chronic instability, then the formal existence of two options tells us only part of the story.

A profession worth keeping makes room for both ambitions.

The ambition to move on.

And the ambition to become exceptional right where you are.

A Career Worth Keeping

Four parts later, I am no longer interested in asking whether paraprofessionals deserve respect.

That question is too easy.

Respect becomes inexpensive when all it requires is language.

Essential.

Dedicated.

Invaluable.

Thank you.

The more difficult measure is what happens when respect has to survive contact with an actual life.

Can experience produce greater security?

Can expertise become professionally visible?

Can someone grow without first leaving?

Can a worker remain long enough to become exceptional at the job without being economically punished for choosing it?

Can that person imagine not only next year, but retirement?

That is the harder definition.

The measure of respect for paraprofessionals cannot be how successfully we help them become something else.

It must also include whether someone can say:

I choose this.

And years later:

I still choose this.

Not because another door never opened.

Not because ambition disappeared.

Not because education was unavailable.

Because this became the work the person wanted to master.

Because there was room to grow.

Because experience mattered.

And because the economics of the profession made staying possible.

That is a different measure of success.

We can still ask how many paraprofessionals used the career ladder to become teachers, counselors, administrators or something else they wanted to become.

But another question belongs beside it:

How many excellent paraprofessionals were able to remain excellent paraprofessionals because the profession gave them a future?

Both questions matter.

That is what real choice looks like.

The title can remain the same while the worker becomes more experienced, more knowledgeable, more trusted and more valuable.

A mature profession should know how to recognize that.

A sustainable profession has to know how to retain it.

And after all the history explored in these four parts, perhaps the final question is remarkably simple:

Can a paraprofessional build a life without having to stop being a paraprofessional?

If the answer is yes, staying really is a choice.

If the answer is no, then there is still work left to do.

A person who spends a lifetime helping make education possible for other people’s children should be able to build a secure life around the work they chose.

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She had shoulders beneath her.

That is where Part Two ended.

And that is where Part Three has to begin.

Part One was about a false choice: the idea that the rights of workers and the needs of communities somehow had to stand on opposite sides of the schoolhouse door.

Part Two followed what happened after paraprofessionals came through that door.

Presence became organization.

Organization became rights.

Rights became an institution capable of surviving the people who first fought for them.

Now comes a different question:

What does the next generation do with power it did not have to build from scratch?

That is the question at the center of Priscilla Castro’s chapter of this story.

Because inheritance is not the end of movement-building.

Inheritance is where responsibility changes hands.

And Priscilla’s generation inherited something substantial.

A chapter.

A contract.

Political relationships.

Organizing structures.

Representatives in schools and districts.

Institutional memory.

Tens of thousands of workers who already understood that they belonged to something larger than themselves.

But the inheritance came with an unfinished problem.

Paraprofessionals had built power.

Too many still struggled to afford the career that power had helped protect.

Priscilla Castro’s generation did not create paraprofessional power from scratch. It inherited the organizing, rights, political muscle and institutional memory built by earlier generations — and used that accumulated power to force the unresolved question of economic dignity to the center of the movement.

RESPECT became the clearest expression of that inheritance.

But inheritance matters only if you do something with it.

Priscilla came from the work

Priscilla Castro did not arrive at the Paraprofessionals Chapter from somewhere above it.

She came through the work itself.

She began as a New York City paraprofessional in 2000 at the Grand Street campus LYFE program in Brooklyn. In 2002, she moved to P.S. 226, a District 75 school in Harlem, where she spent 11 years as both a classroom paraprofessional and a one-to-one crisis paraprofessional, primarily working with students on the autism spectrum. She became the paraprofessional representative at her school and later its chapter leader. From 2013 through 2022, she served as a District 75 borough advocate in Queens. When Shelvy Young-Abrams retired in 2022, Castro became interim chair of the Paraprofessionals Chapter and was elected chair the following year.

That history matters.

Before Priscilla represented tens of thousands of paraprofessionals, she knew the profession from the place where policy becomes personal.

The school.

The classroom.

The child.

The worker.

The problem that has to be solved before the day ends.

Before moving into broader union work, she had also been preparing to become a teacher.

That detail stays with me.

Because one of the questions hanging over this entire series is whether advancement should always require a paraprofessional to become something else.

Priscilla advanced.

Her responsibility expanded.

Her influence expanded.

Her leadership expanded.

And she remained rooted in the workforce from which she came.

She inherited power — and a contradiction

When Priscilla assumed leadership, she did not inherit the fragile organization Velma Murphy Hill once had to build.

When Castro was elected in 2023, the UFT described the Paraprofessionals Chapter as its largest functional chapter, with more than 25,000 members. By the launch of the RESPECT campaign in late 2024, the union described a chapter of roughly 26,000.

That is the inheritance.

But something else had survived alongside the chapter’s growth.

Low pay.

Recruitment problems.

Retention problems.

Workers carrying enormous responsibility while struggling with their own household economics.

In November 2024, the chapter launched its RESPECT campaign around compensation, training, treatment and enforcement of paraprofessional rights. Castro said at the launch that paraprofessionals were central to the school system while many could not pay their bills on their salaries.

That exposed the contradiction inside the inheritance.

The movement had succeeded in making paraprofessionals difficult to ignore institutionally.

It had not yet made the profession economically secure enough for everyone doing the work.

That contradiction is where Part Three begins.

Part Two was about acquiring power.

Part Three is about directing it.

RESPECT put the unresolved problem in the center

The word respect can become dangerously easy.

Institutions know how to say thank you.

They know how to give awards.

They know how to call workers essential.

They know how to celebrate dedication.

All of that has value.

None of it pays rent.

The RESPECT campaign moved recognition toward economics.

And that mattered.

Because once a workforce has spent decades establishing that its work matters, eventually the conversation has to reach a material question:

What is the economic value of the work we keep calling indispensable?

The campaign did not remain an argument made only by people at the top of the union.

Paraprofessionals themselves went to lawmakers.

They sat in offices.

They told their stories.

They explained what their salaries meant in the lives they were actually living.

By February 2026, the UFT reported that paraprofessionals had met with at least 45 City Council members. At a March hearing, Castro testified that members had scheduled meetings with almost every member of the Council.

Think about the distance contained in that fact.

A workforce whose earliest members once had to be persuaded that union power could belong to them was now sending its own members into legislative offices to advocate for itself.

That is inherited power in motion.

Not sitting in an office surrounded by the victories of people who came before you.

Using what they built.

The chapter had structure.

It had representatives.

It had political relationships.

It had members who knew how to show up.

It had an organizing culture that did not need to be reinvented every time a new fight arrived.

Priscilla’s generation could reach for tools earlier generations had spent decades building.

And then aim them at a problem those generations had not finished solving.

That is what inherited power is for.

Then the campaign became law

On July 16, 2026, the New York City Council passed the RESPECT legislation 49–0. The measure was returned unsigned by the mayor and was enacted as Local Law 129 of 2026 on Aug. 18. The law provides eligible school paraprofessionals with workforce-stabilization payments totaling up to $10,000 for work during the 2026–27 school year.

The payments are divided into four installments. The UFT currently lists the first scheduled payment as Jan. 1, 2027, followed by payments on March 1, June 1 and Aug. 1. Substitute paraprofessionals receive prorated amounts based on days worked, and the payments are not pensionable.

Sit with what that represents.

Not simply the dollar amount.

The distance traveled.

A workforce that once had to fight for recognition as workers had built enough organizational and political capacity to carry a major economic demand through the City Council without a dissenting vote.

That is why RESPECT belongs inside this history.

Not because one law completed the work.

It did not.

Not because one leader produced the result alone.

She did not.

It belongs because the campaign demonstrated what accumulated power could be turned toward.

Priscilla could begin somewhere else.

That is the point of shoulders.

Standing higher does not mean standing alone

There is a temptation whenever a movement produces a visible victory to attach that victory to whoever happens to be standing closest to it.

That is how movements become biographies.

But that would misunderstand Priscilla’s significance.

Her importance is not that she somehow surpassed the people before her.

It is that she did not have to begin where they began.

That is what their success should have produced.

A movement has failed at succession if every new leader has to rebuild the same organization, recover the same rights and relearn the same lessons from zero.

Priscilla inherited a chapter that already knew how to organize.

She inherited a workforce accustomed to representation.

She inherited structures through which members could be mobilized.

She inherited political experience.

She inherited memory.

And her generation aimed those assets at the question waiting in front of them:

Economic dignity.

That is progression.

Not replacement.

The shoulders beneath you do not make your climb less significant.

They make a higher climb possible.

One generation asks: Can we organize?

Another asks: Can we turn what we won into rights?

Another asks: Can those rights survive us?

And eventually somebody has to ask: Now that we have power, what can that power deliver economically?

That became Priscilla’s question.

Then came the lawsuit

The ink on the enactment was barely dry.

On August 18, Local Law 129 became reality. On August 19, the Mayor’s office filed the papers to strike it down.

Before the ink could even settle, the administrative resistance arrived in full force. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration filed a lawsuit challenging the law...

The City Council takes a different legal position.

On Sept. 17, the Council filed its response asking the court to decline to hear the administration’s challenge or declare Local Law 129 valid. The Council argues that the law is a narrow response to what it characterizes as an ongoing workforce crisis and that the measure is not preempted by the Taylor Law.

The enacted law itself expressly preserves collective-bargaining rights and provides for the law to expire if bargaining produces an increase in annual compensation equal to or greater than the stabilization payment.

So the disagreement is real.

The administration argues that compensation of this kind belongs at the bargaining table.

The Council argues that this temporary legislative intervention can legally coexist with bargaining.

A court will determine that legal question.

As of Sept. 17, 2026, Local Law 129 remains enacted, and the UFT continues to tell members that the first RESPECT payment is scheduled for January while the litigation proceeds.

But the lawsuit cannot answer everything RESPECT has exposed.

RESPECT exposed something the lawsuit cannot settle

A court can decide whether the Council had the legal authority to create this particular payment.

It cannot answer the larger question that caused thousands of paraprofessionals to organize around it:

Why did a workforce with more than half a century of collective organization still reach a point where extraordinary economic relief became politically compelling?

That question survives either legal outcome.

Collective bargaining has been one of the principal tools paraprofessionals used to transform their profession.

That history should not be minimized.

At the same time, the RESPECT campaign grew from the UFT’s argument that economic pressure on the workforce had become urgent enough to require additional relief. The UFT describes the checks as temporary stabilization payments while it seeks a permanent solution through bargaining.

So RESPECT does not have to be understood as a rejection of bargaining.

Its own structure points back toward it.

That brings us to the distinction that matters most:

Immediate relief can be meaningful without being permanent reform.

A check can be a victory without being the destination

Ten thousand dollars is real money.

Especially for workers whose salaries are measured in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands.

For an eligible full-time paraprofessional, Local Law 129 provides up to $10,000 through four installments tied to work during the 2026–27 school year.

That money can change a year.

It can catch up a bill.

Reduce debt.

Handle an emergency.

Create breathing room.

But temporary relief and permanent economic security are not the same thing.

The RESPECT payments are temporary and non-pensionable. The UFT says its goal is to build on the legislation in future contract negotiations and make comparable compensation permanent and pensionable.

That difference is not fine print.

It is the difference between helping workers through a period of economic pressure and changing the compensation structure underneath the profession.

Which is why RESPECT can be understood as both an achievement and an unfinished assignment.

The achievement:

A workforce organized around economic recognition and moved that demand into law.

The unfinished assignment:

What gets built underneath the check?

Because temporary relief and durable economic security are two different things.

This is what Priscilla’s generation did with the inheritance

It did not have to establish that paraprofessionals belonged in schools.

That fight came earlier.

It did not have to invent the idea that paraprofessionals were workers capable of collective power.

That fight came earlier too.

It did not have to build the chapter from nothing.

Others had done that work.

Priscilla’s generation inherited all of it.

And it used that inheritance to put one unresolved issue where it could no longer remain comfortably at the margins:

Can the people who make this work possible afford to remain in the work?

That is the thesis of Part Three.

Not that Priscilla created the movement.

That would erase the shoulders.

Not that RESPECT completed the movement.

That would ignore what remains unfinished.

The significance is that one generation successfully handed enough power to another generation for the next fight to begin from higher ground.

The earlier struggle made organization possible.

Organization made rights possible.

Rights made an institution possible.

The institution made inheritance possible.

And inheritance made a new demand possible.

Economic dignity.

Respect has to become material eventually

There comes a point when appreciation has to be measured against material conditions.

A profession cannot be sustained by gratitude alone.

Workers cannot deposit praise.

A title cannot solve retention problems with ceremony.

RESPECT pushed those questions into the open.

Whatever ultimately happens in court or at the bargaining table, the campaign has already made the economic condition of paraprofessionals a major public issue in New York City’s debate over staffing and compensation. The UFT describes persistent recruitment and retention problems as part of the rationale for the temporary payments; the Council likewise argues that staffing conditions required legislative intervention.

That is what Priscilla’s generation did with inherited power.

It pointed that inherited power directly at the unfinished question of economic dignity.

But there is still one question beyond the check.

Because economic dignity cannot be measured only by whether someone can survive long enough to leave the title.

It also raises a deeper question about the profession itself:

What if a paraprofessional does not want to become something else?

What if the person wants to remain a paraprofessional?

What if experience makes that person more valuable in the role rather than merely more prepared to leave it?

What does advancement look like when the title stays the same?

Part Three does not answer that question.

It brings us to it.

The shoulders got us here.

The inheritance gave this generation power.

RESPECT showed what that power could put on the agenda.

Now comes the harder question:

Can paraprofessionalism itself become a career that a person can choose, master, remain in and retire from with economic security?

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There is a lie institutions like to tell about power:

That somebody gives it to you.

That if you work hard enough, prove your worth long enough, take care of the children and make yourself indispensable, eventually somebody in authority will notice and reward you.

History says otherwise.

New York City’s paraprofessionals did not acquire power because the school system suddenly recognized how valuable they were.

They acquired power because they organized for it.

They took opportunities that could disappear with the next budget and fought to put structure underneath them. Then they built an organization capable of carrying those victories beyond the people who first won them.

Part One of this series was about presence — about people from the community entering schools carrying language, relationships, culture and knowledge institutions had too often failed to value.

But presence has limits.

You can be loved by children and still be underpaid. You can be indispensable to a school and still have no economic security. An institution can need you without giving you leverage over the conditions under which you work.

At some point, being needed is not enough.

You need power.

Velma Murphy Hill, Maria Portalatin and Shelvy Young-Abrams give us the clearest generational line through how paraprofessionals built that power.

But they were never alone.

No movement this large is built by three people.

There were other hands on the foundation

Before there was a chapter, somebody first had to imagine the role differently.

In 1963, Harlem teacher and AFT Vice President Richard Parrish worked with Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, or HARYOU, on an after-school program employing hundreds of local residents as aides alongside teachers. Parrish saw educational value in what neighborhood residents already knew: the children, their communities and, often, their languages. He also imagined pathways for aides who wanted to become teachers.

Then somebody had to listen to what the workers themselves wanted.

During the UFT’s 1968 organizing campaign, field organizer Gladys Roth reported on a survey of 230 paraprofessionals and 200 teachers. The findings showed how strongly many paraprofessionals wanted education and professional advancement, helping make the career ladder a central organizing demand.

Good organizing does not begin by telling people what their struggle is.

It listens long enough to hear it.

Others helped give the emerging movement reach.

Florence Fidell helped organize the Paraprofessionals Chapter, became the first paraprofessional elected as a school chapter leader and brought Velma Hill’s idea for a chapter newsletter, The Parascope, to life. She later became the chapter’s first vice chairperson and a formidable political organizer.

And then there were people like Maggie Martin, whose contribution reminds us that contracts do not negotiate themselves.

Martin served on the paraprofessionals’ negotiating committee for the first UFT contract. She is there in the photograph from the historic 1970 signing — standing among the paraprofessionals who had helped carry the demands of a new workforce to the bargaining table.

Her presence matters.

It is easy, decades later, to summarize the first contract by listing what it won: higher wages, benefits, educational opportunities and the beginnings of a career ladder.

But every line in a first contract has people behind it.

Workers had to decide what mattered.

Someone had to carry those demands into negotiations.

Someone had to sit across from management and insist that work the system had treated as temporary and inexpensive deserved the protections of a real profession.

Maggie represents those less frequently named builders — the people whose names may not become synonymous with a movement, but whose work is embedded in what the movement actually won.

Marian Thom, a bilingual paraprofessional from Chinatown, helped organize the chapter and mobilize Chinese-speaking paraprofessionals into the UFT. Her work reminds us that a movement rooted in community had to reflect the linguistic and cultural breadth of those communities.

And once Albert Shanker and the UFT committed themselves to organizing paraprofessionals, workers gained the machinery of an established union: organizers, bargaining capacity, political relationships and the ability to negotiate enforceable agreements. Paraprofessionals chose the UFT as their bargaining representative in 1969; their first contract followed in 1970.

That is the larger architecture.

Someone imagined.

Someone listened.

Others communicated, mobilized and supplied institutional muscle.

But those pieces still had to become a workforce capable of acting together.

That is where Velma Murphy Hill becomes indispensable.

Velma understood the assignment

Velma knew organizing before she knew paraprofessionalism.

She came out of the civil-rights movement, and she understood something that gets lost when organizing becomes a word printed on a flyer:

Organizing is relationships.

Trust.

Showing up.

Listening long enough that people believe you will still be there tomorrow.

At Shanker’s urging, Velma became a paraprofessional herself in 1968. She later remembered making $50 a week, with no benefits, no pension and no summer job. The workforce she helped organize was largely Black and Latina and earning poverty wages.

Consider the contradiction.

The school could depend on these women.

Children could depend on them.

Families could know exactly how important they were.

Yet none of that obligated the institution to give them economic security.

That is what happens when workers possess value but not leverage.

Velma went after the leverage.

She socialized with paraprofessionals, visited their homes, met their families and built relationships with teachers because she understood that this new movement could not survive by creating another permanent fault line inside the schoolhouse.

And she was doing this immediately after Ocean Hill–Brownsville.

The distrust between the UFT and many Black and Puerto Rican communities was real. Velma had to organize in two directions at once: helping working-class women from those communities imagine that organized labor could belong to them, while helping organized labor recognize that these women were not peripheral to education.

They were workers.

They belonged.

That is movement-building.

Not pretending the rupture never happened.

Building enough trust after rupture that people can still imagine a future together.

When the first paraprofessional contract was won in 1970, the relationship between workers and the system changed. By 1974, wages had increased dramatically, health benefits had been won and thousands of paras were taking classes through the new educational pathway.

Before organization, the system could deal with paraprofessionals individually.

After organization, it had to deal with them collectively.

That is power.

But winning something once is different from making it durable.

Maria Portalatin learned that lesson personally.

Maria learned exactly what a promise was worth

Maria was raising three children on very little money when the city offered paraprofessionals tuition-free college courses in 1968.

There was enough money for only one out of every ten.

Maria was one of the people selected.

At the time, she supported her children on about $2,000 a year through work that included babysitting and crocheting clothing. College represented something enormous: not simply education, but possibility.

Then, after one year, the city cut the program.

Door open.

Door closed.

That quickly.

An opportunity can transform a life.

But an opportunity controlled entirely by somebody else can disappear just as easily as it appeared.

That is why this sentence matters:

There is a difference between an opportunity someone gives you and a right workers negotiate for themselves.

The first paraprofessional contract restored and expanded the college program, establishing a negotiated career ladder with tuition support and creating a more durable pathway for workers seeking additional education.

That is what collective power can do.

Turn “maybe” into language.

Turn goodwill into obligation.

Make something harder to erase.

Maria eventually succeeded Velma and led the chapter for more than 25 years. During a labor dispute in the 1970s, she led paraprofessionals to City Hall and threatened a sit-in until their issues were resolved. Shelvy Young-Abrams, who was there, later recalled that the mayor gave the workers what they sought.

And there is the detail I do not want us to rush past:

Shelvy was there.

Because movements rarely transfer power in a ceremony.

The next generation is usually already somewhere in the room.

Watching.

Learning.

Participating before anyone realizes she may someday be responsible for carrying it.

Shelvy stayed

Fifty-three years.

I keep coming back to that number.

Shelvy Young-Abrams grew up on a tobacco farm in South Carolina, moved to New York as a teenager and worked in a factory, where she joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. A single mother, she volunteered at her children’s school before being hired as a paraprofessional in 1968. She joined the unionization effort the following year.

And then she stayed.

That word matters.

We spend a great deal of time celebrating people who advance by moving out of the jobs where they started.

Shelvy stayed rooted in paraprofessionalism while her responsibility kept expanding.

She became a union representative in her school, then a district coordinator, Manhattan borough coordinator, first vice chairperson and, in 2006, chapter leader. When she retired in 2022, the UFT honored her for 53 years of union service.

She did not have to become a teacher to prove she had advanced.

She advanced because she knew more.

Because more people trusted her.

Because she carried history other people did not yet realize they would need.

That is institutional memory.

A rally makes a good photograph.

A contract makes a headline.

Institutional memory is quieter.

It is somebody remembering why that clause exists.

Who fought for it.

What management tried the last time.

Who needs to be called.

What needs to be filed.

What Maria did.

What Velma learned.

Movements that cannot answer those questions eventually become dependent on whoever occupies the office.

Shelvy became one of the people who could answer them.

At the chapter’s 50th anniversary in 2019, Shelvy told Velma that the chapter had grown to 29,000 dues-paying members and connected that growth directly to the legacy Velma had left behind.

One generation built something.

Another remembered where it came from.

And because it remembered, it could keep building.

When Shelvy accepted the Charles Cogen Award in 2022, she told UFT members:

“Know that we have the power.”

Not I.

We.

That may be the most important word in this installment.

Because power that belongs only to a leader disappears with the leader.

Power that belongs to people can be inherited.

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The institution has to work on an ordinary Tuesday

That is where Ilyana Frias belongs in this story.

Not as another founder.

As evidence that what the founders built survived.

Decades after the first contract was signed, Ilyana was a UFT District 75 borough advocate—the person teachers and paras called when a room was toxic, a space was unsafe, or an administrator decided safety rules were optional. In 2021, NYSUT honored her with its Unsung Hero award for health-and-safety advocacy, recognizing work that exposed dangerous environmental conditions and inadequate pandemic-era protections.

She was not in the room in 1969.

She did not negotiate the first contract.

She inherited something.

And then she used it.

An institution has truly survived its founders when people who were not present at the founding can still carry its purpose into a crisis the founders never imagined.

She didn’t have to spend years arguing that paraprofessionals deserved representation. That argument had been won in 1970. She just had to pick up the machinery Velma greased, Maria defended, and Shelvy kept alive for half a century—and point it at the fire.

The structure had reached another generation.

Ilyana knew what to do with it.

That is what they built

Not just a chapter.

Not merely an office, a constitution, a newsletter or a collection of titles.

They built the ability of workers to act together across generations.

The movement required vision, listening, representation, political skill and institutional muscle. Those ingredients mattered because workers learned how to combine them.

Velma organized the power.

Maria helped turn opportunity into rights.

Shelvy made the power durable.

And decades later, people like Ilyana could pick it up and use it.

Paraprofessionals acquired power because they organized for it, turned opportunities into rights, and built institutions capable of surviving the people who created them.

That is not history for history’s sake.

It is instruction.

Because every movement eventually confronts the same question:

Are we building something people can inherit?

If the work collapses when a powerful leader leaves, we did not build an institution.

We built dependence.

Velma’s work survived her chairmanship.

Maria inherited it and strengthened it.

Maria’s work survived her.

Shelvy carried it for decades.

And Shelvy did not leave behind an empty chair.

She left an inheritance.

But power had not solved everything

By the time Shelvy retired, the paraprofessional chapter looked very different from the precarious workforce Velma had begun organizing more than half a century earlier.

There were contracts.

Benefits.

Educational pathways.

Retirement rights.

Political relationships.

Leaders.

Institutional memory.

Those victories matter.

We should never become so consumed by what remains undone that we stop honoring what workers actually won.

But a movement also has to be honest about the contradiction that survives its victories.

Paraprofessionals had accumulated significant organizational power.

Economic security had not kept pace.

A workforce could organize, negotiate, mobilize and defend itself — and still contain workers struggling to build stable lives around jobs the school system depended upon.

That does not diminish what earlier generations accomplished.

It identifies the work their accomplishments made possible next.

Shelvy did not leave behind a completed movement. Good leaders rarely do.

She left something more useful:

A chapter with memory.
A chapter with political muscle.
A chapter that knew how to fight.
A chapter that understood the difference between an opportunity and a right.

Most important, she left a chapter strong enough for its next leader to begin somewhere Velma never had the luxury of beginning.

Not from zero.

From inheritance.

And when Priscilla Castro stepped forward, she did so with more than a title waiting for her.

She had shoulders beneath her.

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The question was no longer whether paraprofessionals could acquire power.

Generations of workers had already answered that.

The question now was what the next generation would do with everything those shoulders had lifted high enough for it to inherit.

When Two Rights Collided

A paraprofessional who wants to spend a lifetime helping children learn should be able to afford that choice.

That should not be controversial.

You should not have to become a teacher to prove that you are ambitious. You should not have to leave a profession in order to prove that you have advanced. And you certainly should not have to choose between doing work you love and being able to afford your own life.

That is why I support the RESPECT checks.

But RESPECT did not begin this story.

Not even close.

The fight we are having today over paraprofessional pay sits on top of a much older argument about whose work matters, whose knowledge counts and who gets to exercise power inside a public school.

To understand how we got here, we have to go back.

Before it was a career

The paraprofessional did not begin as the profession we recognize today.

Teacher-aide programs expanded as schools dealt with overcrowding and staffing pressures. Much of the work fell to women brought into classrooms to help with children and take on support tasks. Their supposed natural ability to care for children became part of the justification for paying them very little.

We have seen this before.

When work resembles mothering, caregiving or service, society has a remarkable ability to call it invaluable while putting very little value in the paycheck.

Schools needed the work.

Children benefited from the work.

But the woman doing it could still be treated as inexpensive help.

Then the 1960s changed the conversation.

Black and Puerto Rican communities in New York City were asking harder questions about who controlled their schools and who was allowed to matter inside them.

They were tired of schools operating in neighborhoods while behaving as though the people who actually lived in those neighborhoods had little useful knowledge to contribute.

Parents and community organizations wanted local people inside the schoolhouse.

People who knew the children.

People who knew their families.

People who understood the language spoken at home.

People who understood the culture.

People who did not need someone downtown to explain their own neighborhood to them.

In the Bronx, Evelina López Antonetty and United Bronx Parents pushed for local hiring, stronger bilingual education and greater recognition of Puerto Rican culture. Working-class Black and Latina women were carving out space for another kind of expertise inside public education: the expertise of actually knowing the community.

And then came 1968.

Ocean Hill–Brownsville

Ocean Hill–Brownsville remains one of the most painful chapters in the history of New York City public education.

It also remains one of the easiest to abuse.

People still reach for it when they want a clean villain. Pick a side. Condemn the other one. Move on.

I cannot do that.

At the heart of that conflict were two things I consider non-negotiable.

Black and Puerto Rican communities had a legitimate right to agency in schools educating their children.

Workers had a legitimate right to due process and contractual protections in their employment.

Both things were true.

In May 1968, the Ocean Hill–Brownsville governing board sought the removal or reassignment of teachers and administrators it believed were undermining the community-control experiment. The UFT argued that the action violated the workers’ contractual and due-process rights. The resulting conflict exposed the tension between community self-determination and employee protections in the starkest possible way.

The tragedy was not that one side believed in justice and the other did not.

The tragedy was that two legitimate claims to justice were allowed to become enemies.

And once that happened, things got ugly.

Race mattered.

Institutional failure mattered.

The exclusion of Black and Puerto Rican communities from meaningful authority mattered.

And worker due process mattered too.

I refuse the idea that acknowledging one requires me to erase the other.

You do not have to minimize community anger to defend due process.

You do not have to strip workers of rights in order to admit that institutions have failed a community.

Justice cannot require creating a new wrong to address an old one.

And defending worker rights cannot become an excuse for pretending the old wrong never existed.

I am not going to settle Ocean Hill–Brownsville in this series. I wouldn’t insult the history by trying.

It deserves a fuller treatment, and I intend to return to it on its own terms.

There were wounds from that period that representation alone could not heal. More Black and Latino educators would enter the system. More community residents would find pathways into the schools. The union itself would change.

Those things mattered.

But representation is not a time machine.

It cannot go backward and repair everything that was left unresolved.

What happened next, however, offers us something important.

“History isn’t a neat story with clean heroes and villains—it’s the collision of real people fighting for their piece of the schoolhouse.” Drop your thoughts below.

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They were not outsiders

Many of the women entering schools as paraprofessionals were Black and Latina women from the very communities demanding a greater say over what happened inside those schools.

They were not being sent into the neighborhood.

They were the neighborhood.

They lived there.

Raised children there.

Organized there.

And now they worked in the schools there.

That placed the paraprofessional in an extraordinary position.

She could understand why a parent demanded community agency because she was part of that community.

And she could understand why an employee demanded contractual protection because now she was the employee.

She did not have to surrender one identity to claim the other.

That is the part of this history I keep coming back to.

Ocean Hill–Brownsville had seemingly placed two principles on opposite sides of a barricade.

The community was saying:

You cannot keep running schools in our neighborhoods while ignoring the people who live here.

Workers were saying:

You cannot reform a system by making worker rights disposable.

Then came the paraprofessional.

A person who could say:

I am the worker.

And:

I am the community.

At the same time.

That changes things.

Because once you see her standing there, some of our favorite false choices begin to look ridiculous.

Workers or communities.

Due process or community agency.

Professional knowledge or neighborhood knowledge.

Union rights or racial justice.

Why should justice require one of those things to lose?

The paraprofessional gave us another answer.

Both.

A paraprofessional could join a union without somehow resigning from her neighborhood.

She could respect the expertise of a teacher while insisting that the mother who knew the family had expertise too.

She could demand rights on the job and still understand exactly why communities had grown suspicious of powerful institutions.

That is why this history matters now.

Nearly sixty years later, we are once again being tempted by a false choice. We are being told that perhaps we must choose between protecting collective bargaining and addressing the economic crisis facing paraprofessionals.

I reject that choice.

We have seen this movie before.

We should never let anyone trick us into choosing between the rights of workers and the needs of our communities. Paraprofessionals proved those two things live in the same person.

That is one of the most important things they brought into New York City public education.

Not simply another adult in the classroom.

Not just an extra pair of hands.

A bridge.

But bridges do not automatically have power.

Being trusted by families did not guarantee a pension.

Being necessary to children did not guarantee benefits.

Knowing the community did not create due process.

Somebody still had to organize.

And the women who did would change what it meant to be a paraprofessional in New York City.

Velma Murphy Hill.

Maria Portalatin.

Shelvy Young-Abrams.

They inherited workers who had found a place inside the schoolhouse.

What they helped build was power.

And once paraprofessionals had power, the question was no longer whether they belonged.

It was what they could win.

With her passing at the age of 80, the world lost more than a country music icon.

We lost a songwriter.

A storyteller.

A businesswoman.

A philanthropist.

An educator in her own right.

And Dolly knew how to shine.

The hair.

The heels.

The rhinestones.

The unmistakable voice.

The sense of humor that let you know she was usually in on the joke before everybody else realized there was one.

But do not let all that sparkle distract you from the steel beneath it.

Dolly Parton was nobody’s fool.

She understood people.

She understood power.

And she understood that having a platform means very little if you never use it to lift somebody else onto one.

The Books Were Personal

Dolly grew up in Sevier County, Tennessee, as one of twelve children in a family that did not have much money.

Her father, Robert Lee Parton, could not read or write.

Dolly knew he was intelligent and hardworking. She also understood how his inability to read limited his opportunities and shaped the way other people saw him.

That stayed with her.

In 1995, she created the Imagination Library in her home county. The idea was simple: mail free books directly to children from birth until they begin school.

No complicated application.

No income test.

No requirement that families prove they were poor enough, responsible enough or deserving enough.

One book.

Every month.

Delivered directly to the child.

What began in one Tennessee county grew into an international literacy program reaching children in five countries and gifting more than 300 million books.

Three hundred million.

Let that number sit for a moment.

As an educator, I know that mailing a book to a child does not solve every problem confronting public education.

It does not replace a qualified teacher.

It does not reduce an overcrowded classroom.

It does not repair an underfunded school.

And it certainly does not settle the never-ending reading wars adults insist on fighting while children are still waiting for something to read.

But Dolly never claimed it would.

She understood one basic truth:

A child cannot fall in love with a book they have never been given the opportunity to hold.

Dolly saw the barrier and removed it.

She did not wait for a commission.

She did not wait for a thirty-year study from some Ivy League university to determine whether poor children might enjoy having books in their homes.

She sent the books.

That was Dolly.

And if I am honest, that part of her story makes me a little uncomfortable.

As an educator, I have spent years recognizing barriers, discussing barriers and helping people understand why those barriers exist. I have also sat in meetings where we explained a problem beautifully and left it sitting exactly where we found it.

Perhaps we lacked the authority or resources to fix it.

Perhaps, at times, those explanations also became excuses.

Dolly reminds me that we do not need the power to solve everything before we begin doing something.

She knew what she could do.

She could send the books.

And she did.

She Let Them Underestimate Her

There was always more to Dolly Parton than some people wanted to believe.

They saw the hair and assumed she was not serious.

They saw the clothes and underestimated her intelligence.

They heard the accent and made assumptions about her education.

They watched her laugh and mistook kindness for weakness.

Dolly let them finish.

Then she handled her business.

She wrote songs that became part of the American soundtrack. She protected ownership of her work, built businesses, created jobs and developed a public identity that remained unmistakably her own.

Nobody created Dolly Parton for Dolly Parton.

She created herself.

She could laugh at herself without allowing anyone else to define her.

She could be generous without being naïve.

She could be kind without becoming small.

And she could walk into a room covered in rhinestones while still being the sharpest businessperson sitting at the table.

That confused some people.

I suspect Dolly enjoyed watching them figure it out.

Country Music Did Not Belong to Her Alone

By 2024, nobody could reasonably question Dolly’s place in country music.

Her name carried weight.

Her songs carried history.

Her voice could settle arguments.

That is why her response to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter mattered.

When Beyoncé entered the country-music conversation, some people acted as though she had arrived uninvited at a private family gathering.

Never mind the Black roots of country music.

Never mind the African origins of the banjo.

Never mind the generations of Black musicians whose contributions were minimized or conveniently forgotten.

Country music has a selective memory when certain people come knocking.

The gatekeepers were ready.

“Who does she think she is?”

“Does she really belong here?”

“Is this actually country music?”

Dolly did not join them.

She welcomed Beyoncé.

She celebrated her.

Then she lent her unmistakable voice to the “Dolly P” interlude on Cowboy Carter, introducing Beyoncé’s reimagining of “Jolene.”

Dolly had spent a lifetime building credibility in a genre that guards its borders closely. When people questioned Beyoncé’s place, Dolly placed that credibility beside her.

She did not insist that “Jolene” remain frozen in 1973.

She watched another woman—another artist—take one of her most recognizable songs, turn it around and make it her own.

And Dolly appeared to enjoy every minute of it.

That is what sharing power looks like.

Not opening the door and then demanding applause for allowing somebody inside.

Not welcoming the next generation only if they promise to behave exactly like the last one.

Dolly understood something many powerful people never learn:

Making room for somebody else does not take anything away from what you built.

Sometimes it proves how strong it was in the first place.

She Knew Who She Was

Dolly never seemed confused about where she came from.

Tennessee.

The Smoky Mountains.

A large family.

A small home.

A father who worked hard but could not read.

A mother who filled the home with songs and stories.

As a child, Dolly chased butterflies through the Smoky Mountains, sometimes wandering farther than she was supposed to. The butterfly stayed with her throughout her life as a symbol of freedom, transformation and the courage to follow a dream wherever it might lead.

In many ways, Dolly became the butterfly she spent her childhood chasing.

Poverty was part of her story, but she never allowed it to become the limit of her imagination.

She carried the Smoky Mountains with her.

Into Nashville.

Into Hollywood.

Onto stages around the world.

And eventually into millions of homes, one book at a time.

Dolly proved that you do not have to abandon where you come from to reach somewhere new.

You can honor tradition and still open the door.

You can love country music and still challenge the people trying to control it.

You can become an institution without becoming another gatekeeper.

Dolly managed to do all three.

What She Left Us

Dolly Parton left behind an extraordinary collection of songs.

“Jolene.”

“Coat of Many Colors.”

“I Will Always Love You.”

“9 to 5.”

But her legacy cannot be contained in a playlist.

It is sitting on bookshelves in homes where there might not otherwise have been children’s books.

It is in the child who saw their name on a package and understood that the book inside belonged to them.

It is in the parent reading that book for what may feel like the five-hundredth time—because children will humble even the most committed literacy advocate.

It is in the artist who entered a genre that had not always welcomed people who looked like her and found Dolly standing there—not blocking the entrance, but holding the door open.

Dolly showed us what people should do once they obtain power.

Use it.

Share it.

Make room.

And that forces me to examine how I have used whatever influence I possess.

Have I opened enough doors?

Have I spoken when my voice could make it safer for somebody else to speak?

Have I ever become so comfortable inside an institution that I stopped noticing who was still standing outside?

I cannot answer every one of those questions as confidently as I would like.

Perhaps that is why Dolly’s legacy matters to me.

She reminds me that making a difference does not always begin with having complete power. Sometimes it begins with recognizing what is already in your hands and deciding not to keep it there.

For Dolly, it was her name.

Her platform.

Her songs.

Her money.

Her credibility.

And the books.

Perhaps Dolly Parton provides the best summary of what she gave us:

Dolly offered little libraries; young people are reaching toward opportunities nationwide.

Somewhere tonight, another one of those books will be opened.

A child will lean closer.

A page will turn.

And another imagination will begin traveling beyond the boundaries of what that child has known.

The butterfly may have returned to the Smoky Mountains.

But because of Dolly, millions of little wings are just beginning to open.

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Some people work for the union. Some people serve the union. And then there are those rare people who become part of its heartbeat. For District 75, Ilyana Frias was one of those people.

I met Ilyana Frias in Princeton, New Jersey.

We were both chapter leaders then, attending chapter leader training and trying to absorb all the information being bestowed upon us over those weekends. I remember those trainings, but what I remember even more vividly are the train rides home on New Jersey Transit.

That was where the real debrief happened.

We would recap what we had learned, talk about our chapters, question things, laugh, debate and probably solve a few union problems before the train ever made it back to New York.

It was during those rides that I first realized just how brilliant Ilyana was as a unionist.

She understood people. She understood power. She understood what it meant to represent someone who was counting on you to be their voice when they felt like they didn’t have one.

And Lord knows, she understood how to have a good time.

Ilyana was my coworker. She was my friend. She became my sister.

And losing her after her courageous battle with cancer leaves a space in our union family that simply cannot be filled.

We Grew Up in This Union Together

There was a group of us just getting started ans union leaders around that time: Michael Santos, Ilyana Frias, Roderick Palton, Khiera Kersey Heggs and me.

We got to know one another pretty well.

Looking around years later, it is remarkable to see how everyone grew and matured into different roles within education. We didn’t know exactly where the journey would take us back then.

But I knew Ilyana was going somewhere.

She started her career as a paraprofessional, and she remained a paraprofessional throughout her career.

And I want to emphasize that because Ilyana taught me something important.

There is sometimes an assumption that paraprofessionals are paras because they lack the qualifications to become teachers. Ilyana completely shattered that assumption for me.

She had the ability. She had the intelligence. She had the knowledge. But she had her children early in life, and remaining a paraprofessional made sense for her family and her circumstances.

She also showed me something our school system should never forget:

Paraprofessionals are the backbone of our classrooms.

Ilyana didn’t need another title to validate her intelligence or her importance.

She became a chapter leader while working as a para, which is how our paths crossed. Eventually, I watched her and Michael Santos move into advocate roles, and I watched the investment this union made in developing their leadership come back one hundredfold.

Ilyana ultimately served as a District 75 advocate for Brooklyn.

And she was damn good at it.

Straight, No Chaser

When I began my role with the UFT, I was excited that I would have the opportunity to work alongside Ilyana in Brooklyn.

We were tough on each other.

That’s what happens when two people care deeply about the work and aren’t afraid to tell each other the truth.

I learned tremendously from her because Ilyana didn’t sugarcoat things. She gave it to you straight, no chaser.

And if Ilyana represented you, you knew exactly what you were getting.

An advocate.

Not someone who was going to sit quietly while a principal ran over a member. Not someone who accepted “no” simply because somebody in authority said it. Not someone who forgot whose side she was supposed to be on when things became uncomfortable.

She was there for the member.

Period.

I remember visiting one District 75 school where we were encouraging the staff to understand the power of their collective voice and to use it to push back when necessary.

Eventually, the principal requested that we attend a school community meeting.

During that meeting, the principal decided to take a shot at me. She suggested that I didn’t understand the school’s climate or the needs of its students and then made a remark about having “suits” coming into the building trying to disrupt their flow.

She didn’t get very far.

Before she could even finish, Ilyana stepped in.

And let’s just say that by the time Ilyana finished responding, that principal was eating a healthy serving of humble pie in front of her staff.

The backpedaling began almost immediately and continued when we met privately afterward.

That principal learned two important lessons that day.

First, if you planned on coming for Ilyana or one of her colleagues, you had better come prepared.

Second, Ilyana Frias was ride-or-die for this union and the members she represented.

That wasn’t a slogan for her.

That was how she lived.

Her Advocacy Didn’t Stop at the Schoolhouse Door

Ilyana’s sense of justice extended far beyond District 75.

She loved Brooklyn. She loved the communities that raised her. And she was deeply concerned about what gentrification was doing to neighborhoods and families that had built those communities long before they became desirable to newcomers and developers.

She served with community organizations and stayed actively involved in the issues affecting the neighborhoods she loved.

I learned firsthand that this was another subject on which Ilyana did not play.

We were once waiting for food in a restaurant, talking about how dramatically the neighborhood had changed and how parts of it no longer seemed designed to serve the community that had historically lived there.

A woman nearby decided to jump into our conversation and challenge what we were saying. She talked about how much she loved the neighborhood as it was.

Well…

She picked the wrong conversation.

Ilyana proceeded to give that woman an education on community, displacement and gentrification right there in the restaurant lobby.

That was Ilyana.

There was no switch she flipped to become an advocate when she arrived at work.

She was an advocate.

Dominican. Brooklyn. Union. Family.

Ilyana knew exactly who she was.

Not only did she represent the Dominican Republic hardcore, but she was proud to be an Afro Latina claiming her black ancestry.

She was funny as hell.

She was blunt when business needed to be handled.

She was hardheaded.

She was the life of the party.

And she was beautiful—not simply physically, although she certainly was—but spiritually.

Ilyana was also a fierce ally of the LGBT community. With one of her sister’s children being a part of the community, she understood that advocacy wasn’t abstract. These were people she loved, and when Ilyana loved you, she defended you.

Family meant everything to her

Her daughters, Imani and Thalia, her son, her grandchildren, her sisters, including her sister Pat, and the entire family were at the center of her world.

And Ilyana’s definition of family wasn’t limited to blood.

Michael Santos was her union brother, but blood couldn’t have made the two of them much closer.

When someone in her family struggled, Ilyana didn’t stand on the sidelines. She rallied everybody. When one family member faced mental-health struggles, she helped mobilize the family around that person with love and support.

That’s what she did.

She showed up.

For family.

For friends.

For members.

For community.

For us.

She Kept Showing Up

And perhaps that is what makes the final chapter of Ilyana’s life so difficult for me to comprehend.

Ilyana battled cancer more than once.

And more than once, she beat it.

She was determined that this disease was not going to define her life.

Even as her illness became more serious, she continued working. She continued representing members. She continued carrying responsibilities that would have overwhelmed people who weren’t fighting for their lives at the same time.

I have never witnessed someone work as hard while terminally ill as Ilyana did.

She worked virtually until her deathbed.

There is something inspiring about that level of dedication. But there is also something about it that should challenge all of us who remain.

Because Ilyana gave this union everything she had.

Her knowledge.

Her voice.

Her time.

Her fight.

And, even when her body was demanding that she focus on herself, she was still thinking about somebody else’s problem that needed to be solved.

She would work and overwork herself for the satisfaction of knowing that a member had been helped.

The UFT is indebted to Ilyana Frias.

She left this union better than she found it.

The Leader She Already Was

Ilyana aspired to become a District Representative, and at one point put herself forward for the role.

But whether or not the title ever followed, the work already had.

In Brooklyn, the lines between where her responsibilities ended and where district leadership began could sometimes be difficult to see. Chapter leaders called on her for guidance. She helped train them, supported them through difficult situations and made sure they understood not only what the union could do, but how to do the work themselves.

Members called her when they needed representation, when something did not seem right, or simply when they did not know where else to turn. Ilyana had a way of making their problem her problem until it was resolved.

And she did not reserve that advocacy for people who agreed with her.

Ilyana was a longtime Unity member and a fierce champion of the union, but when a member needed representation, that member was her member, regardless of their caucus affiliation. She would defend you when you were right, tell you when you were wrong, and sometimes do both in the same conversation. Whatever political disagreements existed within the union, they never determined how fiercely she would represent you. Her loyalty to the union never required her to stop holding it—or any of us—accountable.

That was Ilyana.

She built relationships across titles, caucuses and across the district. She challenged administrators when necessary, advised colleagues who sought her counsel and stepped in wherever the work required her. She was rarely concerned with whether something technically belonged to her.

She was concerned with whether somebody needed help.

There are titles that make someone a leader.

And then there are people whose work makes the title seem like a formality.

Ilyana was the latter.

The members who trusted her knew it.
The chapter leaders who relied on her knew it.
The administrators who encountered her knew it.
And those of us who worked alongside her certainly knew it.

Ilyana spent years showing us who she was as a leader.

District 75 is better because she was there.

What I Wish I Had Told Her More

There is something I wish I could tell Ilyana now.

I watched you.

Maybe I didn’t always say it, but from afar, I watched and admired the way you maneuvered through life, work and happiness.

I admired your bravery.

I admired your fight.

I admired your ability to carry so much and somehow keep going.

I wish I could have been there every step of the way as you fought this final battle. But that wasn’t you. You didn’t want to burden people with what you were going through.

Even when you needed people, you were still worried about everybody else.

So let me say what I need you to know now.

I love you, Ilyana.

There will never be another you.

Nobody can fill your shoes, and perhaps we shouldn’t try.

Instead, those of us who had the privilege of knowing you should carry pieces of what you taught us into the work that remains.

We should advocate a little harder.

Speak a little more directly.

Stand a little firmer when somebody tries to intimidate one of our members.

Make room for the paraprofessional whose leadership somebody else might overlook.

Protect our communities.

Defend people who need an ally.

Laugh loudly.

Love our families fiercely.

And every now and then, give somebody the truth straight, no chaser.

And Ilyana, don’t worry about your babies.

Don’t worry about your children.

Don’t worry about those grandchildren.

The people who love you know how fiercely you loved them. We will make sure they continue to be surrounded and showered with the love you wrapped around them throughout your life.

That’s part of our responsibility now.

ILYANA FRIAS

When I think of Ilyana, four words immediately come to mind:

Dedication. Superwoman. Role model. Advocate.

But one word could never contain her.

So perhaps her name itself can remind us of what she gave us:

I — Irreplaceable
Because there simply will never be another Ilyana.

L — Loyal
To her family, her friends, her community, her members and her union.

Y — Youthful
In spirit, humor and her ability to bring life into a room.

A — Advocate
Not merely something she did. It was who she was.

N — Never-yielding
Because “no” was rarely the end of the conversation when Ilyana knew something wasn’t right.

A — Authentic
Straight, no chaser. What you saw was what you got.

F — Fearless
Whether facing an administrator, confronting injustice or battling cancer, fear never got the final word.

R — Resilient
She fought, recovered, returned and kept showing up.

I — Inspiring
To paraprofessionals, chapter leaders, advocates, colleagues, friends and everyone who watched her work.

A — Audacious
Bold enough to challenge authority, expectations and sometimes anybody unfortunate enough to interrupt the wrong conversation in a Brooklyn restaurant.

S — Superwoman
Not because she never struggled, but because somehow, through struggles most of us could barely imagine, she kept finding the strength to fight for somebody else.

Ilyana Frias was a paraprofessional.

A chapter leader.

A District 75 advocate.

A Dominican woman fiercely proud of where she came from.

A Brooklyn community advocate.

A unionist.

A mother and grandmother.

A sister.

A friend.

My sister.

She fought for her members until she no longer could.

And now it falls to those of us who remain to make sure the work—and the love—continue.

Rest well, Ilyana.

You’ve fought enough.

We’ve got it from here.

The news has stunned me to the core. To lose a unionist as brilliant, vibrant, and deeply dedicated as Jackie Bennett leaves a void at the center of the United Federation of Teachers that will not be easily filled.

In a political climate where it is easy to get lost in abstract data and bureaucratic grandstanding, Jackie was our anchor. She was a true veteran who spent 18 years in the trenches as a high school English teacher before bringing her frontline expertise to union headquarters in 2006. Unity Caucus and the entire UFT membership were incredibly fortunate to have her.

When the city’s Department of Education attempted to judge our educators using detached, abstract metrics, Jackie stood as a shield for the rank-and-file, delivering a line that should be rallied behind for decades to come:

“The reality on the ground is often much different.”

Let’s set the record straight: Jackie didn’t just talk about “the reality on the ground”—she hardcoded it into the very structures of our union.

Threefold Reflection: “The Reality on the Ground”

1. The Moment of the Quote: Jackie uttered these words during a critical, high-stakes clash with the Department of Education regarding teacher privacy and deeply flawed evaluation metrics. The city wanted to rely on abstract, disconnected data models to judge the performance of educators. Jackie used this precise phrase to ground the conversation, reminding bureaucratic policymakers that numbers on a spreadsheet can never capture or replace the lived, complex experience of an educator standing in front of students.

2. How the Realities on the Ground Have Changed: Because Jackie stepped in and impacted that work, the daily reality for New York City educators shifted fundamentally. We are still reaping the benefits she instilled in the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) process. By aggressively lobbying against a heavy reliance on standardized testing data and infusing real-world classroom mechanics into complex formulas, she ensured fairer, more protective evaluations. Similarly, through the PROSE program, she changed the reality on the ground by giving individual school communities contractual waivers to bypass rigid regulations and claim local control over their schedules, hiring, and structures.

3. Unity Caucus Engrained in Today’s Realities: Today, as our union navigates a highly volatile city educational and organizational climate, Unity Caucus remains deeply engrained in these frontline realities. The narrative frequently pushed by dissident union factions is that our governance is detached from the everyday classroom. But let’s correct the record: true leadership is not about shouting from the sidelines or generating public oratory; it is about the behind-the-scenes contract strategy and operational mastery that solves real crises. From designing the safety protocols and remote learning frameworks that protected thousands during the COVID-19 pandemic—earning Jackie the coveted David Wittes Award—to managing the unique public model of the UFT Charter School while strictly protecting labor rights, Unity continuously anchors policy in what actually works for the workers on the front lines.

Echoes of Change: The Work Ahead

As I look at the work left to do in today’s union environment, I am reminded that to lead effectively, we must ensure our execution matches our intent. Dissident factions and commentators frequently resurrect outdated arguments or leverage broader systemic frustrations against the administration. But as a union, we cannot afford to fall back on empty rhetoric.

Jackie Bennett showed us how to bridge the gap between policy and practice. She left us the structural blueprint, but it is up to us to carry the torch forward. As UFT White Hat Whispers, my commitment remains to transparency, accountability, and the absolute truth of our labor reality. We have monumental contract battles, healthcare cross-currents, and structural changes ahead of us. We will honor Jackie’s legacy by rolling up our sleeves, stepping back onto the pavement, and ensuring that no matter how complex the administrative machinery becomes, the voice of the working educator remains the ultimate authority.

We extend our deepest condolences to her loved ones. Rest in power, Jackie. Your footprint protects us every single day.

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History isn’t just a collection of dates; for those of us in the trenches of New York City public education, it’s a blueprint. As we look toward the second week of April, five distinct milestones converge to tell a story of where we’ve been, where we failed, and the work that still demands our “White Hat” resolve.

When we look at the Civil Rights Bill of 1866, the Mechanics’ Institution (1824), the birth of Booker T. Washington (1856), the legacy of the American Federation of Teachers, and the tragic bravery of Ryan White (1990), we see the jagged teeth of progress.

The Original Sin: A Bill Without a Soul

On April 9, 1866, Congress overrode a veto to pass the first federal law defining citizenship. It was supposed to be the “Great Equalizer,” but as a unionist, I see it as the first “unfunded mandate.” The 1866 Act provided legal status but ignored the social and educational infrastructure required to exercise it.

It gave a man the right to a contract but no school to learn how to read it. We see this same “Original Sin” mirrored in our districts today: lawmakers pass sweeping mandates for “inclusion” or “standards” without providing the actual funding, staffing, or desks to make them a reality.

The Evolution of Equity: From 1866 to 1964

Because the 1866 Act lacked “teeth,” it took nearly a century of struggle to pass the versions of the Civil Rights Act we lean on today.

• The 1866 Act: A Bill in Disguise - Focused primarily on the right to own property and make contracts. It was a “property rights” bill dressed as human rights.

• The 1875 Act - Attempted to ban discrimination in public “accommodations” (hotels, trains), but was struck down by the Supreme Court, proving that legal status was fragile without federal protection.

• The 1964 Act: The turning point. This version finally moved into the public sector, banning segregation in schools and tying federal funding to compliance. This is where the law finally met the classroom.

The Agenda for the Next Civil Rights Act: We need a bill that codifies Resource Equity. It shouldn’t just be illegal to segregate; it should be illegal to underfund. A modern bill must protect digital access as a civil right and mandate mental health ratios that meet the needs of the “Whole Child.”

But equity isn’t just about the right to enter the building; it’s about the tools we are given once we are inside. This is where the “Builders” of our movement come in.

The Legacy of the Builders

Each of these events left a specific “gene” in the DNA of our modern union work:

• The Mechanics’ Institution (April 7, 1824): The spark for vocational education. It proved that the “working man” deserved the same scientific knowledge as the elite.

• The AFT Legacy (April 10): Founded in 1916, our national union turned teaching from a “calling” into a profession. We are the reason there is a middle class in education.

• The Ryan White Case (April 8, 1990): Ryan’s fight to sit in a classroom while living with HIV was a battle for human dignity. Today, that same battle is being fought over class size and student mental health. You cannot have a “right to sit in a classroom” if that classroom is overcrowded, unsafe, or lacks the emotional support a student needs to stay in their seat.

The Booker T. Washington Intersection

Born into slavery on April 6, 1856, Booker T. Washington was a ten-year-old boy when that first 1866 Act was signed. He lived its failure. He saw that legal rights were hollow without the skills to back them up.

What would he say if he walked into a NYC public school today? He’d see students with $1,000 phones who lack the vocational path to a $100,000 career. He’d likely say: “I taught you how to build the building so you could own it; why are you now just waiting for someone to give you a permit to enter it?” He would remind us that education is the only true emancipation.

The Verdict: The White Hat Agenda

In “Trump’s America” of 2026, we are seeing a return to that hollowed-out version of rights—where “choice” is used as a mask for abandonment. Here is what we must accomplish:

1. Bridging the Ryan White Gap: Ensuring mental health is treated with the same legal urgency as physical safety.

2. Reclaiming Vocational Training: Moving beyond being “users” of AI to becoming the architects of it through a New Mechanics’ Movement.

3. Mandating Resource Equity: Moving from the “status” granted in 1866 to the “funding” required in 2026.

History isn’t over. We are writing the entries for the next generation. Let’s make sure we’re building something that lasts.

Which of these “unfinished” areas do you feel most in your building right now? Let’s discuss in the comments.

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On this April 3rd, we revisit “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” As unionists in New York City, we shouldn’t just read these words—we should recognize them. The struggle of those men in Memphis is the direct ancestor of our struggle in the UFT today.

The Mirror: Memphis Sanitation and the UFT

When those sanitation workers marched, they weren’t just asking for a raise; they were demanding the recognition of their human dignity. They were fighting against a system that viewed them as “invisible” and “expendable.”

In this concrete jungle, we face the same spirit of opposition. The “Pharaohs” of today don’t always wear crowns; sometimes they wear the suits of budget hawks and city bureaucrats who view our schools as balance sheets rather than sanctuaries. Whether it’s the fight for equitable healthcare for every member, or the urgent push to get the Paraprofessional Bill passed through the City Council, the message from the “Pharaohs” remains the same: Your labor is a commodity, not a calling. When we rally to Fix Tier 6 so our newest teachers can retire with the same dignity as those who came before them, or when we demand that America finally keep its promise of student debt relief for educators, we are carrying the same signs those men carried in 1968. We are asserting that the educator—the teacher, the para, the retiree—is as foundational to the soul of this city as the sanitation worker was to Memphis. By refusing to let them pit “Active” against “Retired” or “Teacher” against “Para,” we dismantle the Pharaoh’s favorite trick: division.

Unity: The “Bigger Picture” King Pointed Toward

King’s most urgent warning in Memphis was about the “Pharaoh’s favorite strategy.” He noted that the only way to keep a people enslaved was to keep them “fighting among themselves.” He knew that if the sanitation workers broke rank, the movement would die in the mud of Memphis.

This is the “bigger picture” that the Unity Caucus represents today. Unity isn’t just a name; it is the strategic defense against the internal division King feared. While opposition slates might focus on the “Dream” of a perfect contract, the caucus focuses on the Demand of a collective front. By protecting our house from being divided—whether through defending our democracy at the “No Kings Rally” or fighting for Tier 6 reform—we are operationalizing King’s final mandate: Stay together.

The Message: From “Dream” to “Demand”

If “I Have a Dream” was the poem of the movement, “Mountaintop” was the union manual. It was grittier. It moved beyond integrated lunch counters and focused on economic withdrawal and redistributive justice.

The Grace of Not Sneezing

Most poignantly, King used this final speech to reflect on his own mortality through a story from Harlem. He recounted the 1958 assassination attempt where he was stabbed in the chest with a steel letter opener. The blade rested so close to his aorta that doctors told him if he had even sneezed, he would have died.

King told the Memphis crowd about a letter he received from a young girl saying, “I am so happy that you didn’t sneeze.” He, too, was happy he didn’t sneeze—not for his own life, but because it allowed him to see the movement flourish, to march in Selma, and finally, to stand with the workers in Memphis. This narrow escape transformed his life into a gift spent entirely on the struggle.

The Inherited Climb: From Memphis to Philadelphia

In the decades since that stormy night in Memphis, few have captured the specific “Mountaintop” gravity that defines the American struggle. However, many look to Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” (2008) as its true successor in spirit.

The parallel is striking: just as King stood before a room of “invisible” men in 1968 to diagnose a “sick nation,” Obama stood before a fractured country forty years later to address the “racial stalemate” that threatened to keep us divided. Where King moved the movement from the Poetry of the Dream to the Manual of the Union, Obama bridged the gap between raw, radical grievances and the hopeful possibility of a shared future.

Both leaders understood that the “Pharaoh’s strategy” only works if we believe our neighbor’s struggle is not our own. By reaching back to the grit of Memphis, Obama helped a new generation believe that the climb was still possible—reminding us that whether we are sanitation workers in 1968 or educators in 2026, the “Promised Land” is not a gift we are given, but a union we must constantly labor to perfect.

A Letter to Dr. King: 58 Years Later

Dear Dr. King,

I read your words tonight in a New York City that feels both brand new and ancient. We have the “freedom to assemble,” but we often use it to shout over one another. We have the “Promised Land” on our maps, but the tolls to get there—Tier 6, healthcare costs, student loans—are higher than ever.

You told us to care more about our brother than ourselves. In the Unity Caucus, we are trying to do just that. We are trying to keep the “Pharaoh” from using his favorite trick on us. We’ve seen the mountaintop, and while our legs are tired, we haven’t walked out of the classroom.

Thank you for not sneezing. We’re still walking.

UFT White Hat Whispers

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As a unionist, I’ve spent my career fighting for the safety of our classrooms. But today, looking across the Atlantic reveals that when we compare how Finland handles a school shooting to our own approach, we aren’t just looking at different laws—we are looking at two entirely different philosophies of childhood and accountability.

The American Parallel: From Newport News to Georgia

The closest American parallel to the Vantaa tragedy isn’t a high school massacre, but the 2023 shooting at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Virginia. There, a 6-year-old brought his mother’s gun to school and shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner. This incident, much like the one in Finland, involved a child so young that the concept of “criminal intent” felt like a secondary concern compared to the massive failure of adult supervision.

That failure of supervision led to a seismic shift in American justice just 30 days ago. On March 3, 2026, a Georgia jury handed down a guilty verdict for Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old who opened fire at Apalachee High School in the city of Winder. Gray was convicted of second-degree murder—a landmark moment because he didn’t pull the trigger himself. Instead, he was found liable for gifting his son an AR-15-style rifle after the FBI had already warned the family about the boy’s violent threats.

The Great Divide: The “Finnish 15”

While we turn toward this “Georgia Model” of punishing parents, Finland remains anchored in a vastly different legal reality: the age of criminal responsibility is 15.

Because the Vantaa shooter was only 12, he could not be arrested, charged, or jailed. Instead, he was handed over to child welfare services for psychiatric care. In Finland, the focus is on establishing facts—including the shooter’s reported motive of “ending the bullying”—rather than seeking a “perp walk.” They treat the shooter as a failed child rather than a successful criminal.

The statistical contrast is staggering. Despite high gun ownership for hunting, Finland has seen only three major school shootings in 20 years. Meanwhile, in the U.S., we have already surpassed 40 gun-related incidents on school campuses in the first three months of 2026 alone.

The 2026 Midterms: The Battle for the House and Senate

In “Trump’s America,” school safety is being redefined by “hardening targets” and removing “disruptive” elements from the classroom. As UFT advocates, we know the danger: the push for universal school choice threatens to siphon funds away from the mental health resources that prevent a child from reaching a breaking point.

To stop this, we must reclaim the House and Senate this November. The math is a razor-thin tightrope:

• The House: We need a net gain of 3 to 4 seats for a majority. The DCCC has launched an aggressive 44-seat offensive list, but we must also look at 8 additional high-potential targets created by recent GOP retirements (like Sam Graves in MO-06 or Tony Gonzales in TX-23) and “Harris-Republican” districts like NY-04 on Long Island and CA-45.

• The Senate: We need a net gain of 2 seats. The “easiest” paths run through Maine, where Susan Collins faces a surge from challenger Graham Platner, and North Carolina, where Roy Cooper is running for the seat vacated by the retired Thom Tillis.

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Voices of Conscience and The Path to Change

Change requires allies on both sides. We’ve seen “voices of conscience” like John Cornyn (R-TX) support past safety legislation, and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)—whose suburban PA-01 district is a key battleground—consistently push for background checks. We need to support candidates like Roland Gutierrez in Texas and Lucia Báez-Geller in Florida, who prioritize healing over “hardening.”

The Verdict: A Call to Action

To truly protect our students in this here concrete jungle and across the nation, we must bridge these two worlds. We need the accountability of the Georgia Model and the preventative social safety of the Finnish Model.

This only happens if we vote.

If you know anyone in the suburban battlegrounds—NE-02 (Omaha), NY-17 (Hudson Valley), PA-01 (Bucks County), AZ-01 (Phoenix), or CA-22 (Central Valley)—reach out today. Ensure they are registered. Remind them that a vote for the House and Senate is a vote for the “Whole Child.”

History repeats itself until we learn the lesson. Today, we remember the victims of Vantaa and Apalachee, and we keep fighting for the safety of our schools in New York City and across this nation.

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Dr. King understood a truth that remains “dangerous” to those in power today: civil rights are hollow without labor rights. He knew that the ballot box and the bargaining table are two sides of the same coin. When he spoke to the AFL-CIO in 1961, he noted that the “labor hater” and the “race hater” are almost always the same person.

Why the Torch Must Burn Brighter Now

In our current climate of polarization, some suggest that unions should be “apolitical” or stay in our lane. History, and Dr. King’s walk, tell us otherwise.

• The Struggle Against Division: Dr. King fought the “artificial constructs” of class and bigotry. In our own union, we must be vigilant against any form of “The Other”—whether based on age, background, or belief—that weakens our collective front.

• The Demand for Dignity: Dr. King famously said, “Power surrenders nothing without a demand”. Whether we are fighting for the preservation of our healthcare or the integrity of our classrooms, we carry his torch whenever we refuse to accept “lip service” in place of progress.

• The Bridge of Shared Values: Dr. King was a master of enlisting “natural allies”. To carry his torch today means finding common ground with those who share our values, even when our politics differ, to ensure every educator can retire with dignity and every student has a pathway to the middle class.

To lead effectively, we must ensure our execution matches our intent. Dr. King’s legacy is not a statue to be admired; it is a movement that requires us to keep asking “why” and to never stop demanding “more” for the workers who keep this city running.

The following summary provides a factual counter-narrative and a guide for Chapter Leaders to address these claims in their shops.

1. The Medicare & Health Plan Reality

Arthur claims that leadership “lied” about the Medicare Advantage plan regarding doctor acceptance and co-pays.

• The Reality: Union statements on healthcare are based on the contractual obligations of providers at the time of negotiation; they are not static “lies” but reflections of a fluid bargaining process.

• Co-pays: Changes in co-pays, such as the $100 City MD visit mentioned, are driven by city-wide budget constraints and the necessity to preserve premium-free basic coverage.

• The “Misinformation” Label: President Mulgrew uses this term to describe rhetoric that ignores the legal and financial frameworks, such as the Administrative Code, that govern municipal benefits.

2. The Welfare Fund vs. City Benefits

Arthur conflates the UFT Welfare Fund with City-funded health plans to suggest retirees are being “forced” into unfair premiums.

• Legal Separation: The UFT Welfare Fund is a separate, fiduciary entity from the union and the City; it must remain solvent through actuarial logic, not political petitions.

• Prescription Coverage: The premiums Arthur identifies are a necessary cost-sharing tool to ensure the long-term survival of supplemental benefits for a massive and growing retiree population.

3. The Delegate Assembly (DA) & Due Process

Arthur characterizes the DA as a “cult” and ridicules the reinstatement of a District Representative.

• The President’s Report: Reporting on the President’s speech is a mandated constitutional function of the DA, providing a summary of high-level union policy to the delegates.

• Member Harassment Claims: Elevating a localized seating dispute—involving a “vacant seat”—into a broad indictment of “bigotry” distracts from the actual legislative work of the assembly.

• Administrative Due Process: Reinstating an employee after a served suspension—even for distasteful comments—is a standard application of the same labor protections the UFT fights for every day for its members.

Final Fact Check for Chapter Leaders

The narrative being pushed is misleading because it prioritizes emotional melodrama over the complex work of union governance. By focusing on memes and seating charts, Arthur avoids the hard truth: leadership requires making difficult choices to protect the collective whole.

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At this very moment, as the Venezuelan President sits in a Manhattan courthouse, the United Nations is in an emergency session debating whether this administration has committed a "crime of aggression." The irony is thick enough to choke on: we are teaching our students about the "Rule of Law" while the world’s most powerful nation operates under the "Rule of Might."

The Ghosts of 1991 and 2003

For those of us who have been in the classroom for a few decades, this feels like a grim, high-definition rerun.

• The Persian Gulf Era: We remember the first Bush administration and the "New World Order," where the defense of "sovereignty" was the rallying cry—provided that sovereignty was tied to the flow of oil.

• The Afghanistan & Iraq Era: We remember the second Bush administration, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," and the hunt for WMDs that were never there, all while the oil maps were being redrawn in the background.

Now, we see the pattern complete its trilogy. The current administration has dropped the "nation-building" pretense of the past, openly stating that the U.S. will "run" Venezuela and that American oil companies will be the ones to "rebuild" its infrastructure.

It Was Always About the Oil

Let’s be clear with our students: Venezuela sits on the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. This raid wasn't just a "law enforcement action" against drug trafficking; it was a hostile takeover of a resource. By bypassing Congress and the UN, the administration has signaled that the "Free World" is only free if you play by Washington's rules. 

This move is incredibly dangerous. It jeopardizes the safety of every American abroad and erodes the very international treaties that prevent global anarchy. When the U.S. ignores the UN Charter, we lose the moral authority to call out any other nation for doing the same. We aren't just "securing oil"; we are burning the bridge of international cooperation.

The Teachable Moment

To my fellow educators: this is the curriculum. Our students—especially our seniors who will be voting in the next cycle—are watching a sovereign nation be turned into a corporate subsidiary in real-time. Do not let this moment pass in silence.

• Ask them: Does the end (removing a dictator) justify the means (an illegal invasion)?

• Ask them: If a foreign power raided Washington to arrest a U.S. official, what would we call it?

• Ask them: Who benefits when the drums of war start beating in South America?

We are not just teaching history; we are teaching students how to survive it. Let’s help them see through the "White Hat" rhetoric and understand the cold, oily reality of the "Absolute Resolve" operation. Our job is to create critical thinkers, not just compliant citizens.

I. Bill 1096: The Real Desperation Exposed

The opposition’s intense focus on Bill 1096 is the ultimate proof of their desperation and their contempt for the union’s established democratic processes.

• What is 1096? NYC Council Intro. 1096 is a bill that seeks to amend the City’s Administrative Code. Its purpose is to codify the preservation of traditional Medicare and the choice of a Medigap (Medicare supplemental) plan for current and future city retirees, ensuring benefits are equivalent to or better than those available as of December 31, 2021.

• The True Threat to Union Rights: Intro. 1096 is opposed by major unions, including DC 37, because it would amend the Administrative Code to lock in specific health care requirements without identifying a funding source. This legislative maneuver would effectively impede the union’s ability to collectively bargain over a core benefit, violating the Taylor Law and setting a dangerous anti-union precedent.

  • DC 37’s Executive Director, Henry Garrido, stated that the bill would “take a sledgehammer to the tenets of collective bargaining”.

• The Opposition’s Goal: Bypass and Sabotage: Goldstein’s admission that he supports 1096 to “bypass the Delegate Assembly, and bypass the Unity machine“ confirms that the opposition’s goal is to legislatively circumvent the union’s highest governing body. This is an attack on the UFT’s internal democracy, not a defense of member rights.

II. The “Saved” Health Care: Victory Secured by UFT Strategy

The central claim—that President Michael Mulgrew and Unity “tried to reduce our health care”—is a cynical distortion of a process that led to a landmark victory for retirees.

• The Mandate for Change: The plan to shift retirees to a cost-saving Medicare Advantage plan was driven by the City of New York and the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC). The goal was to secure $600 million in annual health care savings to fund future wage increases and sustain the long-term solvency of premium-free health care for all municipal workers.

• Strategic Adaptation: The UFT leadership, recognizing the anxiety of its retirees and facing legal setbacks, withdrew support for the mandatory Medicare Advantage program.

• The Ultimate Defense: The union and its allies ultimately prevailed when the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, ruled that the City must continue to pay the full cost of any health insurance plan a retiree chooses. This definitive legal protection permanently preserves the right to traditional Medicare supplemental insurance. The threat of a mandatory shift is gone, proving that the necessary protections were secured.

III. The Fiduciary Facts of the Welfare Fund

The attack on the UFT Welfare Fund’s $1 billion surplus is either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading.

• Legally Restricted Funds: The Welfare Fund is governed by strict federal and state fiduciary rules. These rules dictate that the funds are designated specifically for supplementary benefits (like optical and dental) and cannot be legally or unilaterally moved to cover costs in other, separate areas, such as the retiree pharmacy component (SHIP).

• Financial Responsibility: The UFT leadership is legally bound to manage these costs to ensure the longevity of all supplemental benefits for its members. The claim that the surplus should simply be raided to cover unrelated costs demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of financial law and fiduciary responsibility.

Conclusion: A Campaign of Division

Goldstein’s entire piece is a campaign of division. It is the action of a desperate opposition willing to:

1. Undermine the foundational union right to collective bargaining by supporting Intro. 1096.

2. Lie by ignoring the definitive legal victory that secured retiree health care.

3. Attack the integrity of professional staff like the union’s lawyer and engage in ad hominem smears.

The opposition’s desperation is not over a policy failure, but over their failure to win the political battle. The UFT leadership, through strategic action, secured the right to premium-free traditional Medicare supplemental coverage. The opposition’s only recourse is to cling to internal grudges and engage in political mud-slinging.

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My UFT sibs, grab your coffee (or something stronger).

Zohran Mamdani—the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist—is officially our Mayor-elect. The papers call it a "tectonic shift" and a "mandate for transformation". Let’s cut through the noise. For those of us grinding it out in the classroom, the Mayor is just a talking head on the news. All eyes are focused on one thing: the person sitting in the big chair at Tweed. Because that’s who decides if our lives are miserable or manageable.

The selection of the next Schools Chancellor is the first real test of whether this new administration wants a revolution at Tweed, or an anchor to steady the ship. The whispers coming out of the transition team are loud. We are staring down a fiscal cliff, a migrant crisis that requires logistics (not slogans), and a new philosophy called "co-governance" that threatens to turn every decision into a committee meeting.

So, who keeps the target off our backs? Let’s break down the contenders, UFT style.

The Contenders: The Good, The Bad, and The "Please, God, No"

1. The Incumbent: Melissa Aviles-Ramos ("The Fix")

The Vibe: The devil you know.

The Whispers: Currently, she’s the one Mulgrew and our leadership have publicly backed.

The Uptown View: She knows where the bodies are buried. She’s an insider who came up as a teacher and principal. Keeping her means continuity. We are deep in the weeds with "NYC Reads"—do you really want to scrap all that training and start a new "revolutionary" curriculum next September? She also managed "Project Open Arms" without total collapse.

The Downtown Reality: She’s got the "Adams Stigma". To the progressives, she represents the "deep state" of the old guard. The fear is she might be too nice—a "loyal lieutenant" who won't fight back when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announces cuts.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: Stability is “the new bag”. Our history with her shows that she listens, and frankly, we’re tired of disruption.

2. The Revolutionary: Jamaal Bowman ("The Wild Card")

The Vibe: Big dreams, messy paperwork.

The Whispers: He’s Mamdani’s "brother" in the movement. He talks a good game about "human liberation" and ending the testing madness.

The Uptown View: He hates high-stakes testing as much as we do. A Chancellor who wants to end the data-obsession? Sounds like paradise.

The Downtown Reality: Siblings, look at the record. When he was a principal, he let his School Building Leader (SBL) certification lapse for two years. Let that sink in. If you or I let our license lapse for two days, we’d be pulled from the classroom. Do we want a boss who plays by different rules?

And watch the hands, not the mouth. Bowman built his brand on being a "miracle worker" in the Bronx, but when the cameras turned off in 2019, his building was reading at 26% proficiency. That’s the "vig" on his leadership. When the numbers were up, he pointed at the scoreboard. When they were down, he called the game rigged. You can't claim the championship ring one year and call the league 'slavery' the next.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: You want to know why we should be terrified? Look at the tape. We aren't talking about policy; we're talking about temperament. This is a grown man who pulled a fire alarm in Congress because a door was locked, then claimed he thought it was a keycard. He was a NYC Principal for a decade—he knows what that red lever does. If he causes a building evacuation to save five minutes on his commute, what does he do when the OMB rejects his budget? He doesn’t negotiate; he pulls the lever and creates chaos. We need a leader, not a liability.

3. The Integrationist: Kamar Samuels ("The Goldilocks")

The Vibe: Smart, tough, but scares the rich folks.

The Whispers: He’s the "insider-reformer" from District 3.

The Uptown View: He actually does the work. He desegregated District 3 without burning the district down. He prefers the IB model over high-stakes testing, which is a solid pedagogical move.

The Downtown Reality: He is public enemy #1 for groups like PLACE.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: If he gets in, the middle-class flight to the suburbs might accelerate. Less enrollment = less funding = excessing. That’s the math we have to worry about.

4. The Made Woman: Rita Joseph ("The Teacher")

The Vibe: One of us. Literally.

The Whispers: She spent 22 years at P.S. 6.

The Uptown View: She has moral authority. She knows what a class size of 32 feels like. She knows the struggle of ELLs because she lived it.

The Downtown Reality: She’s never run a bureaucracy. Going from the City Council Ed Committee to running a $38 billion agency is a terrifying jump. We need someone who can manage complex contracts on Day 1, not someone learning the ropes while the ship is taking on water.

The Outsiders ("The Do-Not-Touch List")

Alex Marrero (Denver)

Fights with his board, mediocre evaluations, and anti-union vibes over COLA adjustments?. Pass.

Angelica Infante-Green (RI)

A top-down "reformer" who is currently at war with her teachers' unions. Hard pass.

The Verdict: Who Should Get the Rose?

Mamdani has a choice between three futures: Stability (Aviles-Ramos), Revolution (Bowman), or Equity Reform (Samuels).

The Choice for the Membership:

If we are looking strictly at what protects the rank-and-file, keeps the checks clearing, and stops the constant churning of initiatives, the choice is clear:

Melissa Aviles-Ramos.

Here is the reasoning, minus the noise:

1. Do No Harm: We are facing a "fiscal cliff." We cannot afford a Chancellor who is learning on the job (Joseph) or one who creates chaos that distracts from the budget fight (Bowman). Aviles-Ramos is the technocrat who keeps the machine running.

2. Respect the License: We hold ourselves to professional standards. We cannot have a Chancellor who failed to maintain his own certification. It sends a demoralizing message to every dues-paying member who follows the rules.

3. Continuity: We have spent years adapting to "NYC Reads." We need to finish the job, not pivot to a new "ideological laboratory."

4. Strategic Ally: Our leadership has already signaled she is the partner we can work with. In a "co-governance" world, having a Chancellor who understands the UFT contract is better than a visionary who doesn't know what a grievance is.

Mamdani might want a revolution, but we need a shield. Aviles-Ramos buys us time and stability. Let the politicians play their games at City Hall; we need a steady hand at Tweed.

Stay strong, stay united, and check your certifications.

The dust has settled. The unthinkable (to the consultants) and the inevitable (to the organizers) has happened. Zohran Mamdani is heading to City Hall.

The panic in the real estate boardrooms is palpable. The chatter at the Tweed Courthouse is nervous. But here in the breakrooms and the chapter leader group chats, the feeling is different. It’s cautious optimism mixed with a very specific question: Now what?

We know the “socialist” label scares the establishment. But let me whisper a secret that the tabloids won’t tell you: Competent progressivism is actually good for business, and it’s great for the city.

If Zohran wants to avoid the traps that caught De Blasio (high rhetoric, slow execution) and Adams (swagger over substance), his first 100 days need to be surgical. Here is my prediction on how Mamdani pulls off the impossible: merging deep structural change with high-functioning city services.

1. The “Free Move” Initiative (Days 1-14)

Zohran knows his brand is built on transit. He can’t fix the MTA overnight (that’s still the Governor’s fiefdom), but he can control the streets.

My Suggestion:

He should execute an Executive Order in Week 1 expanding the “Free Bus” pilot program from five lines to one line in every Community Board district.

Why it works:

It’s immediate. It puts money back in the pockets of working-class New Yorkers (our paraprofessionals and our parents) instantly. It proves that “universal basic services” isn’t just a theory—it’s a bus ride. It buys him massive goodwill while he fights the bigger battles.

2. The “Tweed” Clean-Up & The Classroom Contract (Days 15-45)

Here is where the rubber meets the road for us. The UFT has been locked in a cycle of adversarial nonsense with the DOE for too long.

My Suggestion:

Mamdani shouldn’t just talk about the Class Size Law; he should weaponize the budget to enforce it. I suggest an “Educator Autonomy” directive. No more micromanagement from superintendents who haven’t been in a classroom since the 90s.

The Twist:

He could pair this with a push to convert vacant commercial real estate into school annexes to solve the space issue. This solves two problems: the commercial real estate collapse and the overcrowded classroom. It’s a progressive solution to a capitalist crisis.

“A mayor who treats teachers as partners rather than adversaries isn’t ‘radical’—it’s efficient.”

3. Social Housing: The “Build Baby Build” (But Make It Public) (Days 46-75)

The narrative is that progressives are NIMBYs. Zohran has to kill that narrative to survive.

My Suggestion:

He should announce the creation of a Social Housing Development Authority. Instead of begging developers to add a few “affordable” units in exchange for tax breaks, the City could act as its own developer on city-owned land.

Why it sets him up for success:

It creates union construction jobs (winning over the Building Trades) and creates permanently affordable housing. If he breaks ground on one major social housing project in his first 100 days, he proves that the government can build things again.

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4. The “Quality of Life” Left Hook (Days 76-100)

This is the danger zone. The Right will attack him on crime and trash. If the streets are dirty, the ideology doesn’t matter.

My Suggestion:

Mamdani should reallocate part of the bloated police overtime budget not into “defunding,” but into Civilian Care Response Teams and aggressive sanitation services.

Imagine a city where mental health professionals respond to distress calls (freeing up cops for actual crime) and where trash containerization is fully funded. If the city looks cleaner and feels safer under a socialist mayor, the conservative argument collapses.

The Verdict: The “LaGuardia” Model

Fiorello LaGuardia was a radical for his time. He was also a master builder and a champion of the working man.

Zohran Mamdani has the chance to be the modern equivalent. The path to becoming a historic mayor isn’t about abandoning his principles to move to the center; it’s about execution.

If he focuses on service delivery—making sure the buses run, the trash is picked up, and the schools are supported—while implementing his redistributive policies, he will be unbeatable.

The establishment is betting on him to fail. They are betting on chaos.

My bet? He’s going to bore them with competence and thrill us with results.

Stay tuned, and keep your eyes on the contract negotiations.

What’s the Big Idea, Anyway?

At its core, the administration is attempting to streamline – or, depending on your perspective, dismantle – the federal agency dedicated to education. The rationale presented is that K-12 education is essentially preparation for the workforce, and therefore, its management should align with the Department of Labor’s focus on workforce development and worker rights (yeah right). Significant federal funding streams, like the $18 billion Title One for high-poverty schools, and various support programs for teachers and students, are caught in this departmental reshuffle.

Can We Find Any Upside Here? Let’s Ponder...

From my vantage point, finding genuine positives in bureaucratic upheaval is a challenge. However, I have considered all angles.

• A Potential (But Unlikely) Synergy? The administration’s argument hinges on connecting education directly to “career readiness”. If, and this is a colossal “if,” this move genuinely fortified pathways between our classrooms and meaningful careers, providing better vocational training or apprenticeships that are genuinely supported by federal structures, that could offer a benefit. It might mean more resources for programs that clearly demonstrate post-graduation success.

• The Bureaucracy Mirage: They’re claiming this will reduce bureaucracy. If, hypothetically, by moving oversight, some of the more convoluted administrative requirements for accessing federal funds were simplified, that could lead to smoother operations for schools and districts. This remains purely speculative, of course.

The Real Concerns: Where Our Focus Lies

Now, let’s talk about where our collective experience and analysis lead us. These are the points that should keep our “White Hats” firmly on and our antennae tuned.

• Educational Expertise Evaporating? The Department of Education was established precisely to house and advance educational expertise at the federal level. Moving K-12 oversight to the Department of Labor, an agency with a fundamentally different mission and skillset, risks diluting that specialized knowledge. Will Labor officials truly grasp the nuances of early childhood education, special education support, or the complexities of federal funding for disadvantaged students in the way the Dept. of Ed. was intended to? This fragmentation risks creating a vacuum of informed educational leadership.

• Erosion of Federal Standards and Protections: Federal involvement in education, from Title One to civil rights protections, has historically been a crucial lever for equity. Unions have always championed these standards to ensure that all students, regardless of zip code or background, have access to a quality education and are protected from discrimination. When you disperse these functions, you weaken the federal government’s ability to enforce these vital protections.

• The Peril of Silos: The very reason the Department of Education was consolidated was to avoid the fragmentation that arises when educational programs are scattered like loose change across various government departments. As education leaders have pointed out, this silo effect leads to fragmented results. For teachers and school administrators trying to navigate federal support and regulations, this promises to be a confusing, inefficient, and potentially detrimental landscape.

• Subverting the Democratic Process: These significant changes are being made administratively, bypassing Congress. For a union that believes in process, transparency, and the democratic mandate, this is deeply troubling. The creation and structure of federal departments are matters for our elected representatives, not for executive fiat alone. This suggests an agenda to reshape federal education policy through executive action rather than legislative consensus.

• The “Dismantle” Blueprint: Let’s be clear: this administration has been vocal about its desire to eliminate the Department of Education. These moves are not isolated incidents; they are stepping stones in a deliberate plan to diminish the federal role in public education, a role that, imperfect as it may be, provides essential support and a commitment to equal opportunity.

Our Role As Educators and Unionists

For us at the UFT, this means doubling down on our advocacy. Our leadership in their “White Hats” are trained to identify challenges and devise solutions. We must assist them by:

• Amplifying the Voice of Educators: Ensure that the on-the-ground realities of teaching and learning are heard loud and clear in any discussions about policy.

• Scrutinizing the Details: Keep informed about which specific programs are moving where and how they are being managed. The devil, as always, is in the details.

• Building Coalitions: Work with allies in the education community and civil society to push back against efforts that weaken our public schools.

• Reinforcing the Value of Federal Support: Continue to advocate for the critical role the federal government is supposed to play in ensuring equitable and quality education for all students.

This reshuffling is more than just bureaucratic shuffling; it’s a fundamental challenge to the federal commitment to public education. We must remain vigilant, informed, and united in our defense of our students and our profession.

Keep your “White Hats” on, and let me know your observations and concerns in the comments.