LA Teachers Union Defies Trump On DEI, Demands Huge Pay Raise

The L.A. teachers union is defying President Trump by championing DEI policies while demanding pay increases of more than 26 times higher than the current annual pay raise for some teachers.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has called for support of “new educators, with targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers” and “strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff,”  The Los Angeles Times reports.

Last week, the White House issued a fact sheet regarding an executive order targeting DEI policies. The fact sheet stated, “The Order also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology. … Mathematics and reading scores are down in public schools, despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% since the 1970s, indicating that more spending does not mean better education.”

“The district’s DEI initiatives and self-declared sanctuary status make it a potential subject of investigation by the federal government,” Will Swaim, president of California Policy Center, stated. On March 3, Swaim’s group joined others to file a complaint against the California Department of Education (CDE), Los Angeles Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Capistrano Unified School District “arising from ‘gender identity’ policies and practices in violation of Title IX.”

The complaint notes that on February 4, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a letter stating it would “enforce Title IX under the provisions of the 2020 Title IX rule, rather than the 2024 Title IX rule,” which had prohibited “gender identity” discrimination. “CED responded to OCR’s guidance with public statements indicating that it plans to change nothing about its ‘gender-identity’-related lodging or intimate facility access policies,” the complaint points out.

“President Cecily Myart-Cruz said her members are fully cognizant of Trump’s hostility to union priorities but are determined to stick with theirs,” The Times reports.

Additionally, the union is demanding automatic annual salary increases at a rate of 3.25% a year for the first 10 years of a teacher’s career, “more than 26 times the current annual bump in some cases and the higher annual raises would be built in, without having to bargain for them in every contract cycle,” the Times notes. Additionally, the union wants to reduce the number of education credits required to qualify for salary bonuses by roughly 30%.

“LAUSD has the money to fund these contract proposals, but you will hear that they don’t,” Myart-Cruz claimed. “Don’t believe it.”

“School district leaders, including Supt. Alberto Carvalho, have said LAUSD is spending at a pace that would nearly wipe out its reserves over the next three years,” the Times reports.