Karen Lewis Mocks Arne Duncan

This is so ugly – yet so typical of the rhetoric of the defenders of the status quo when they're attacking reformers: the head of the Chicago teachers union, as part of a nearly incoherent rant (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/karen-lewis-mocks-arne-duncan_n_1093070.html), made fun of Sec. Duncan's lisp, which is not only vicious but stupid (he doesn't have a lisp).  She called him to apologize and he, of course, graciously accepted it, so she's walking scot-free on this.  Can you imagine if Arne mocked her obesity or said something racist?  He would have had to resign immediately.  It is a phenomenal double standard and another example of the utter lack of civility on that side of the debate (i.e. the AFT still hasn't taken down its www.rheefirst.com web site, the plantation comments by the head of the NAACP in NYC, etc.)

 

CHICAGO -- Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis apologized to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Monday after a video of Lewis saying Duncan had a lisp was made public.

Lewis, who is also the vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, made the comments during a Northwest Teachers for Social Justice event in Seattle on Oct. 1. Video from the event was posted on YouTube by the conservativeEducation Action Group late last week.

"Now, you know [Duncan] went to private school 'cause if he had gone to public school he would have had that lisp fixed," Lewis said in the video.