Mayorkas puts controversial union chief Randi Weingarten on DHS academic council

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Randi Weingarten grilled by GOP in contentious hearing over COVID-19 school lockdowns

Fox News congressional correspondent Aishah Hasnie has more on House Republicans questioning teachers unions influence on CDC in hearing over COVID-19 school closures on Special Report.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced this week that Randi Weingarten, the controversial head of the American Federation of Teachers union, will be one of the new members of a DHS academic council.

Mayorkas announced that Weingarten will be one of 20 new members on the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. According to a press release, the council was formed last year and "will provide strategic and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more."

"Leaders of our academic institutions and campus life have a great deal to offer in helping us counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland," Mayorkas said in a statement. "The Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council’s insights into strategic research, innovation, career development, and partnership opportunities for the Department will support our mission to safeguard the American people, and help our country think through and prepare for whatever threats lie ahead. 

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American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on May 22, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

"I am grateful to each of the twenty Council members I am appointing today for their willingness to serve, and I look forward to receiving their guidance and recommendations," he said.

Weingarten became a lightning rod for controversy in 2020 as the public face of an aggressive push by teachers' unions to keep schools closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic until an exhaustive list of demands were met – while simultaneously claiming they wanted schools to re-open. As schools re-opened in Europe and even parts of the U.S., areas where unions held more influence kept their schools shuttered.

The AFT’s plan included handwashing on entry; screening for symptoms, including temperature-taking; an isolation room; a secondary "triage" area; a remote option for some teachers (even when students are in the building); smaller class sizes; split scheduling; modified transportation; staggered lunch times; training for staff and parents on COVID-19; a daily sanitization of school facilities; a suspension of teacher performance evaluations; increased staff; use of PPE, including masks, hand-washing stations and remote learning "when school attendance is not possible." 

More broadly, the reopening plan included a call for the cancellation of college student debt and the boosting of food stamp benefits, and overall eyed a $750 billion investment from Congress, which the AFT said "will help put us on a path to reopen safely."

Weingarten herself called a proposal by the Trump administration to reopen in the fall of 2020 "reckless" "callous" and "cruel."

It later emerged in 2021 that the AFT influenced the Centers for Disease Control on the language used in a document on school reopening – including concessions for remote work for "high-risk" teachers.

WEINGARTEN BLASTED FOR CLAIMING CRITICS ARE FOCUSING ‘ON 2020’ WHILE SHE'S MOVING ON

Weingarten was also calling for continued forced masking of children in school as recently as 2022 until there was zero transmission in schools. In May of this year, she appeared to try and turn the page on the controversy.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on May 11, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

"As others want to focus on 2020, our focus is how to help kids now – helping them thrive and overcoming learning loss & loneliness. 4 strategies will help – community schools, hands on/ experiential learning, respecting educators & deepening the parent-teacher partnership," she tweeted. 

The school closures and other pandemic policies have repeatedly been shown to have had a devastating impact on America’s children. Test results released Wednesday show reading and math scores showed a drop in four points in reading and nine in math – the sharpest drop in 50 years.

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She has also drawn ire from Republicans over her liberal stance on how schools should deal with issues of race, sexuality and gender. In a lengthy profile of Weingarten published in the New York Times recently, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the union head "the most visible face of the destruction of American education."