What’s happening in Colorado is precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court tried to prevent decades ago.
In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold a New York state law prohibiting communists from teaching in public schools. Dubbed the Feinberg Law — the New York statute banned from the teaching profession anyone who called for the overthrow of the government.
The 6-3 decision, specifically crafted to keep communism out of the classroom, supported the belief that “(T)he state had a constitutional right to protect the immature minds of children in its public schools from subversive propaganda, subtle or otherwise, disseminated by those ‘to whom they look for guidance, authority and leadership.’”
Even then, the New York Teachers Union vowed to fight the law. Decades later, teachers’ unions are still fighting to put communism in the classroom.
During an event earlier this month organized by the Colorado AFL-CIO, the parent organization of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s second largest teacher’s union, a Colorado teacher took the stage to call for a “forceful cultural revolution."
Tim Hernandez is a teacher at Aurora West Preparatory Academy in the Aurora Public Schools District, according to its website. He announced in his speech at the Colorado AFL-CIO event that he advocates for Marxism-Leninism to be taught in schools, admitting that he teaches radical communist doctrines in his classroom.
The Colorado teacher has published his radical anti-white views on his public social media accounts, calling for white people to “distance themselves from their whiteness.”
Imagine the civil rights uproar if a public school employee with a taxpayer-funded salary called for blacks to “distance themselves from their blackness.”
This wildly racist suggestion would surely have resulted in the teacher being fired and facing legal action for racial discrimination and/or hate speech. But when it’s white students being discriminated against, Hernandez’s actions are not only overlooked but endorsed by teachers’ unions across the country.
The Colorado Education Association (CEA), the largest teachers’ union in the Mountain State, with more than 39,000 members, has gone even further to advocate for communist ideology by passing an anti-capitalism resolution at its 97th annual delegate assembly last month.
The resolution asserts, “(T)he CEA believes that capitalism requires exploitation of children, public schools, land, labor, and/or resources and, therefore, the only way to fully address systemic racism (the school-to-prison pipeline), climate change, patriarchy (gender and LGBTQ disparities), educational inequality, and income inequality is to dismantle capitalism and replace it with a new, equitable economic system.”
The director of communications at CEA, Lauren Stephenson, claimed the resolution “reflect(s) the views of the union’s 39,000 members.”
This radically anti-American ideology is being championed by teacher’s’ unions and written into lesson plans all over the state.
Colorado State Sen. Mark Baisley (R-Roxborough Park) has alerted Colorado Attorney General John Kellner about Hernandez’s public rhetoric, warning “history has shown us how violent this movement can become.”
“This radical teacher’s call for a forceful revolution against the people may very well be a crime,” he said. “And adding a racial motivation may also make this a hate crime.”
Baisley continued, “It’s unconscionable that any school in Colorado, let alone a preparatory Academy, would employ a teacher who uses such a primeval call to arms.”
Hernandez’s contract with the Denver Public School was not renewed after he was placed on administrative leave for helping students organize a walkout, which resulted in police helicopters surrounding the school. Hernandez claims his contract was not renewed because, “(W)hite school leaders did not appreciate the ways (he) advocated for students.”
After being placed on administrative leave by Denver Public Schools for organizing a student walkout that was planned off-campus at the home of an Aurora Public School principal, Hernandez was offered a position at Aurora Public Schools, where the Aurora principal told him, “I’ve already seen everything that you can do. I’ll let you teach whatever you want. You can come to our school. Please help me transform our school.’”
And so he has. Just not in the way the district’s parents would approve of.
Juliana Rubio is a communications specialist and spokesperson at the Freedom Foundation.