Back in January, a couple days after the oral arguments on Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association--arguments that were universally assessed as harbingers of the Supreme Court dealing a mortal blow to public sector unions in America--I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible feeling of dread and horror.
It had dawned on me the that the union I helped form when I worked at Temple University, the union that gave me my start in politics after I washed out of academia, my mother's union--the same one that successfully defended her when she was put on forced maternity leave for being pregnant with my older brother in 1972--that union--the American Federation of Teachers--was going to be basically ruled illegal in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision written by Antonin Scalia.
I am a very privileged person, one of the meanings of which is that I am typically not impacted when laws change. Administrations come and go, and tens of millions of lives are altered by their shifting policies, but I personally will be doing fine no matter who is in power. My engagement in politics tends to be based more in abstractions and values, rather than in direct personal experience.
But Friedrichs was one case that bothered me on a deep, experiential level. It felt like a direct attack on both me and my family. And yeah, it was the first thing I thought about when I heard the news about Antonin Scalia yesterday.
With Scalia's passing, it is now highly likely that Abood vs Detroit Board of Education, the current legal status quo that allows public sector unions to successfully operate in many states, will remain law of the land. With that knowledge, I will sleep better at night now, at least for a few months.
Long live the American Federation of Teachers. That is all.
