Powerful unions demand end of student debt, ‘immigration reform’ under Harris presidency

A group of powerful labor unions called on the Harris-Walz ticket to adopt a slew of liberal education policies Monday.

A coalition of unions representing teachers in higher education announced their support for the Harris-Walz ticket and their plan to “reclaim higher education” from “right-wing zealots” at a Monday press conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Leaders from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Education Association (NEA) and several others outlined several expectations for the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, including canceling student debt and allowing teachers to address “gender and identity” and race in the classroom.

“We call on your ticket and the broader Democratic Party to unite with us around key issues,” the organizations wrote in a “statement of unity” released during the press conference. The statement included demands to increase federal funding, “end student debt once and for all,” and “enact comprehensive immigration reform to remove barriers for undocumented and international students and workers.”

NEA President Becky Pringle claimed that Republicans “want to take us back decades” during the conference.

“We are fighting to protect and advance not just the rights of education professors and unions to exist and our students, but we are protecting the very right of our democracy to exist,” she continued. “That is why we are not only supporting but we are working with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who will be our nation’s next president and vice president. But we must have pro-public education and pro-higher educators elected all up and down the ticket.”

Pringle also called on Harris to give teachers the “academic freedom to teach about and allow space for the exploration of issues of race and class and gender and identity and religion and the ideology without the interference of politicians or courts,” while Weingarten appeared to advocate for the thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters that have overtaken campuses across the nation, saying “peaceful, nonviolent protests, regardless of whether anybody agrees with it or not, must be a common good and the good in colleges.”

Several speakers at the press conference bemoaned Republicans for taking a stand against teachers’ unions and fighting back against indoctrination in schools.

“[W]e have recently seen right-wing demagogues attack our campuses, people like that soon to be failed vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance who called professors the enemy and said that he had a vision to take over all of our colleges and universities so that he and others can police what we teach and what we research and what our students can learn and say,” Todd Wolfson, a professor at Rutgers University and American Association of University Professors, said. “That ain’t going to happen,”

Another issue facing the unions is “right-wing zealots” and “racist reactionary politics” that have decreased unions’ power, Margaret Cook of the Communications Workers of America Union (CWA) said during the conference. Many also objected to the privatization of the education sector.

Speakers also called for “thriving wages,” with Mia McIver, president of Higher Education Labor United (HELU), complaining that teachers made “only $188,000 a year.”

Harris’ campaign promises to “fight to make higher education more affordable,” but lists no other details for an education plan.

The Harris-Walz campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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