Educators organize to support besieged teachers

In the ongoing culture war waged by extremist conservatives against education, the right to read, and marginalized communities, teachers and educators have found themselves caught in the crossfire. These individuals now find themselves targets of all manner of calumny by conservatives intent on rolling back the societal clock decades, if not centuries.

In recent years, extremist conservatives have been working tirelessly to control school boards, colleges and universities by banning LGBTQ-themed books, attacking trans students, and whitewashing curricula of all things considered “woke.” Mandates are being imposed on teachers (as well as librarians, counselors and administrators) to conform to these mandates lest they be penalized, terminated or even threatened with violence.

In response to these developments, Defense of Democracy (DoD), a progressive advocacy organization that combats the conservative agenda, is developing a branch organization called Educators Defending Democracy (EDD), intended specifically as an aid and resource for teachers facing a right-wing assault.

EDD is a newly minted branch of DoD. While things have been in the planning stage for some time, EDD has only officially been operating as a separate entity for about a month. The organization aims to expand nationally. Currently, it has two volunteer co-chairs: Jenny Bobo, an educator from Oklahoma, and Caroline Barlowe from Delaware.

According to Bobo, EDD is still in the early stages of organizing, though they already have a number of volunteers in various states to help get things up and running.

“Public education is a cornerstone of democracy,” Bobo said. “EDD is intended to provide assistance and support for educators and librarians, education about their rights and their options, to train them to combat the tide of conservatism from the inside. We want to give teachers tools and guidance for fighting Moms for Liberty and their extreme right-wing allies.”

One of the biggest challenges facing teachers has been the growing effort to ban books with LGBTQ+ and DEI content from school and public libraries. Tara Robbins Fee, a teacher in a Pittsburgh suburban school district, is a recent volunteer for EDD, and is well aware of the challenges Pennsylvania is presenting for the right to read. She has volunteered to spearhead the development of a program to deal with this specific challenge.

“Ultimately, we want to devise programs and resources to support teachers facing book challenges,” Fee said.

Fee admits that it’s still early days for EDD, and that a major focus now is recruiting volunteers to help devise and implement the programs envisioned by the group’s founders. So far, she says, things are looking promising, with people signing up to volunteer in several districts throughout Pennsylvania.

The current task of recruitment is falling heavily on Karen Svoboda, executive director of Defense of Democracy. She is looking for people who agree with EDD’s core beliefs. According to the DoD website, these beliefs are “Public Education is a Cornerstone of Democracy,” “Freedom, Equality and Justice,” “Critical Thinking,” “Professional Expertise,” “Equity and Inclusion,” and “Well-being.”

Anyone interested in working with Educators Defending Democracy should visit defenseofdemocracy.org.