Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina blasted a teachers union boss on Wednesday for comparing the parental rights movement to proponents of segregation.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten took a shot at the parental rights movement, which emphasizes a parent’s authority over a child’s education, in an interview aired Tuesday. Weingarten compared those parents frustrated largely with public school officials to parents who resisted desegregation on the basis of race.
Scott said the union boss was spreading “liberal lies” that harken “back to a day that no longer exists.”
“There might not be anyone that’s done more damage recently than Randi Weingarten to the kids living in distressed communities, especially like the ones where I grew up,” Scott told Fox News.
“I’m so sick and tired of liberals — too many of them happen to be white — crying racism every single time they’re losing an argument,” he continued. “I can’t think of anything more actually racist than trapping poor black kids in the failing schools in these big blue cities dominated by a super-majority of radical progressives who are running the cities and destroying the schools.”
Scott, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, said Weingarten and the teachers union are two of the chief hurdles to a child’s education today.
“They’re the ones, with their teachers unions, standing in the doorway of the schoolhouse, trapping poor kids in as if the house is on fire, but they won’t let a single soul out,” the senator from South Carolina said. “It’s really frustrating, and it’s one of the reasons why I think we have no choice but to break the backs of these teachers’ unions. They’re the problem. They’re literally destroying the future of millions of kids.”
Weingarten attacked the parental rights movement in an appearance on the podcast Power At Work, produced by the Burnes Center for Social Change. The union boss said she was made aware of a connection between the parents’ rights movement and segregationists from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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“Those same words that you heard in terms of wanting segregation post-Brown v. Board of Education, those same words you hear today,” Weingarten said.
“I was kind of gobsmacked when I was talking to Southern Poverty Law Center, and they showed me the same words, ‘choice,’ ‘parental rights,’ and an attempt to divide parents versus teachers,” she added. “At that point, it was white parents versus other parents, but it’s the same kind of words.”
🚨NEW: @AFTunion President @rweingarten smears the parental rights movement👨👩👧👦 as some sort of new Segregation. Her source?🤔 A far-left smear factory notorious for putting conservatives on a "hate map" with the KKK. https://t.co/TIeeTvTdhl pic.twitter.com/nZxPgTDEOz
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) September 13, 2023