Chicago mayor and political figurehead Lori Lightfoot is getting a taste of her own medicine as the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) fights for more time off due to the spread of the notoriously non-threatening Omicron variant, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Lightfoot has had several run-ins with the teachers’ union in recent years. Most recently, she engaged in a dispute with them during the 2019 teachers’ strike, as well as attempts to reopen schools last year.
“I have to tell you, it feels like ‘Groundhog Day,’ that we are here again,” Lightfoot said, referring to her past dealings with the CTU.
She also accused union leaders of “politicizing the pandemic.”
According to the embattled mayor, the science surrounding COVID protocols has changed tremendously, especially since President Joe Biden took over his current position.
“We need to lean in to the science and the data and not push that to the side and give in to fear-mongering and hysteria,” said Lightfoot, who has long pushed fear-mongering and hysteria in response to the pandemic.
“There is no basis in the data, the science or common sense for us to shut an entire system down when we can surgically do this at a school level,” Lightfoot said, breaking with Dr. Anthony Fauci and his “scientific” conclusions.
But CTU leaders, desperate to do even less work, demanded impossible-to-meet guidelines for returning to the classroom so that they might “teach” virtually for many months to come.
“What we have proposed is more than reasonable,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey wrote in a letter to State leaders.
In response, Lightfoot skillfully played the race card in response to all backlash, falling back on the claim that black and brown bodies are affected more by shutdowns than whites.
“Why on earth, when we don’t need to pause, would we pause and risk falling back into the same old trap?” Lightfoot said. “Achievement gaps are real and they’re affecting kids of color at an exponential rate.”
