Why Sean Duffy’s Fight To Fix The Frightening Reality Of School Bus Safety Is Being Blocked

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wants to find out whether any school bus drivers hold fraudulent commercial driver’s licenses. Randi Weingarten, head of the nation’s second-largest teacher union, is standing in the way.

Sec. Duffy has requested records that would allow the Department of Transportation (DOT) to catch drivers who are in the country illegally, credentialed fraudulently, or both. Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers (AFT) joined a lawsuit brought by 21 blue states and Washington, D.C. that aims to block Sec. Duffy from accessing this information.

The DOT is seeking five years of records, including drivers’ names, dates of birth, commercial driver’s license (CDL) numbers, states of licensure, and the last five digits of drivers’ Social Security numbers. This data is currently held by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). None of the information is particularly sensitive, save for the Social Security numbers. And the idea that Social Security numbers should be kept secret from the same government that gave them out is patently absurd.

Weingarten’s purported concern for driver privacy rings hollow. The data could, however, expose CDL holders who obtained the credential under false pretenses.

Federal regulations block all illegal immigrants, and all but a few groups of lawful non-citizen residents, from obtaining CDLs. But oversight was sorely lacking under the Biden administration, leading to the proliferation of CDL mills. These sham schools credential drivers with little to no training. CDL drivers are supposed to be able to communicate in English, but CDL mills have been found licensing some drivers who cannot even read road signs.

CDL fraud has had devastating consequences. Dalilah Coleman was just five years old when an illegal immigrant CDL holder caused a pile-up that left her permanently disabled. She spent weeks in a coma and will need lifelong treatment.

Others have not survived their encounters with illegal CDL holders. Three people were killed when Harjinder Singh, an illegal immigrant, made an illegal U-turn in a semi-truck on the Florida Turnpike. Singh could not communicate with officers in English, and he failed the Florida CDL knowledge exam 10 times before California granted him a CDL. Crashes in Indiana, California, and Ohio, all caused by illegal immigrants with CDLs, have taken the lives of innocent people.

The AFT is terribly unconcerned with who is shuttling America’s students to and from school each day. The union represents 13,500 transportation workers and estimates that 11,000 of them hold CDLs. It would rather gamble with students’ safety than risk losing even one dues-paying member, even if that member is totally unqualified for the job.

It is frightening enough that so many people are moving thousand-ton machines down our highways having cheated their way into the job and perhaps even having cheated their way into the country. It is even worse to think that an untold number of these people are charged with not only driving a large vehicle, but also keeping safe the children inside it.

When school districts hire bus drivers directly, district officials must verify each driver’s credentials. Some districts are likely more thorough than others. But for the more than 4,000 school districts that outsource transportation to a third-party vendor, district officials are taking the contracted company’s word that each hired driver is qualified to transport children.

This is far from the first time teacher union bosses have used their political might to the detriment of students’ safety. The Defense of Freedom Institute has exposed how teacher unions have strong-armed school districts into keeping sexual abusers on their payrolls and adopting “restorative practices” that allow classrooms to devolve into chaos, and sometimes even violence.

This country needs competent, trustworthy drivers behind the wheel of our school buses, much the same way it needs teachers with integrity. Sec. Duffy has already made great strides to fix this problem. The scope, however, should frighten every American. A Department of Transportation press release claims the administration has uncovered 9,500 CDL mills and “forced states to cancel over 28,000 licenses illegally issued to foreign drivers.”

Sadly, Duffy’s efforts have been stymied – at least for now – by a preliminary injunction issued by a U.S. District Judge in Virginia. Weingarten and the AFT may have won the battle, but the safety of millions of kids depends on them losing the war.

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Angela Morabito is a former U.S. Department of Education press secretary and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

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