The NEA Shows Its Politics

The most powerful union of government employees is the National Education Association (known as the NEA), which held its annual national convention as usual this year over the Fourth of July weekend, attracting 9,000 delegates. To no one's surprise, it resembled a re-election campaign rally for Barack Obama, with the pressure on the delegates to identify themselves by wearing EFO buttons, the initials for Educators for Obama. Many delegates wore Obama campaign buttons and T-shirts and sported banners with messages such as "You are our knight in shining armor." The official NEA newspaper, called "RA Today," featured a very political full-page endorsement of Obama headlined "Do your part and pledge to be an educator for Obama today!"

The NEA convention passed its usual scores of anti-parent, anti-school-choice, pro-feminist, pro-homosexual resolutions that morph into the NEA's Legislative Program. This authorizes the highly-paid NEA staff to lobby Congress, state legislatures, education departments, and school boards to adopt NEA policies.

The NEA's official Legislative Program includes many items that implement radical liberal ideology but have nothing to do with educating students. The NEA supports "national health care that will mandate universal coverage." The NEA supports a long list of United Nations treaties, all of which would limit U.S. sovereignty and meddle in our domestic laws and customs. The NEA supports adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would mandate "equality of rights ... on account of sex." To reinforce that goal, the NEA supports passage of a federal statute to assure "sexual orientation" rights. The NEA supports "confirmation of Supreme Court Justices and federal judges who support civil rights." According to the NEA, "civil rights" includes both "reproductive freedom" and "prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression."

Listen to the radio commentary here: