The nation’s largest teacher’s union, which backs Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, on Monday announced a massive digital and mail campaign to warn educators and parents that Republican Donald Trump’s tough talk is prompting kids to bully Muslims and Latinos.
National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García announced the campaign in a media call, and claimed that Trump’s campaign has led one high school basketball team playing a mostly Hispanic team to bark, “Build the Wall!”
“The rise in vitriolic speech in classrooms and the anxiety this causes for some of our most vulnerable students shows that Trump’s rhetoric is far more damaging than previously imagined,” she said.
On the call, she was joined by Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota who added that he has heard of students bullying Muslim students by yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump” at them.
The NEA has seized on a recent report, titled the “Trump Effect,” from the Southern Poverty Law Center which claimed that Trump’s language is being echoed and mimicked by Americans, especially students, and results in bullying.
The NEA president also endorsed the report’s push for students to use the election to focus on incivility in the campaign.
García said that the NEA will call on its three million members, mostly female teachers, to push its anti-Trump campaign. “We will have an outsized impact,” she said. The NEA, she added, will be “using our members’ voices.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
