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randi weingarten
'We Don't Have to Live This Way,' Says Teachers Union Leader After Florida Shooting
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," said the head of the American Federation of Teachers.
Apr 17, 2025
Following a deadly shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, vowed to redouble the union's efforts to push for gun safety reform.
"Campuses and classrooms must be safe and welcoming places, but they can become unsafe in an instant because of the ever-present threat of gun violence," said Weingarten, who noted that the shooting at FSU comes on the heels of a shooting at a Dallas, Texas high school on Wednesday and a shooting near a school campus in San Antonio, Texas also on Wednesday.
"We are the only country in the world that regularly deals with this—but we don't have to live this way," Weingarten said. "We should remove weapons of war from our streets and communities, fund community violence intervention programs, enforce background checks and safe-storage laws, ban high-capacity magazines, and pass more risk-protection laws."
"Lawmakers must urgently move to thwart these horrific events that result in terrifying and tragic real-world consequences," Weingarten concluded.
In a press conference Thursday afternoon, FSU Chief of Police Jason Trumbower said that two people are dead following the shooting—though they were not students. Six others were wounded. The gunman was also shot and is at the hospital.
CNN reported that the shooting suspect has been identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, who is the son of a Leon County sheriff deputy.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, said he is not surprised by the shooting at FSU and that some of his daughter's friends are currently attending FSU.
"My daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Many of her friends who were lucky enough to survive that shooting went on to attend FSU. Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today," he wrote on X.
The Tallahassee Democrat also reported that a survivor of the Parkland school shooting was at the FSU campus Thursday.
The gun violence prevention group Giffords reacted to the news of the shooting, writing on X: "What Florida doesn't have: Universal background checks, assault weapon restrictions, large-capacity magazine bans. What Florida does have: The latest school shooting in America."
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Judge Blocks DOGE 'Fishing Expedition' in Sensitive Social Security Data Systems
"The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans," said one union leader.
Mar 20, 2025
Defenders of the Social Security Administration celebrated a federal judge's Thursday order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from access to millions of Americans' SSA records.
"The DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack," wrote Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who issued a temporary restraining order.
In her 137-page opinion, Hollander explained that "to facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE team with unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers' license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses."
"Yet, defendants, with so-called experts on the DOGE team, never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE team needs unlimited access to SSA's entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government," noted the appointee of former President Barack Obama.
"Indeed, the government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task. Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud. Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," asserted the judge, concluding that "plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that such action is arbitrary and capricious," and violates the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The plaintiffs in this case are three advocacy and labor groups—the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Alliance for Retired Americans, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)—represented by Democracy Forward. In addition to DOGE, they sued the SSA and its acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, over the "data grab."
"This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country," AFSCME president Lee Saunders said of the Thursday order. "The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans. This decision will not only force them to delete any data they have currently saved, but it will also block them from further sharing, accessing, or disclosing our Social Security information."
AFT president Randi Weingarten also welcomed the development, saying that "no one filed for Social Security believing their personal assets would be appropriated by a billionaire who attacks Social Security as a 'Ponzi scheme.' Americans must be allowed to retire with dignity and grace without having to worry about Elon Musk jeopardizing their savings."
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which is involved with multiple court battles challenging the Trump administration's sweeping assault on the federal government—pledged Thursday that "our team will continue its legal efforts to ensure that this data remains protected and that those responsible are held accountable."
Judges who have ruled against Trump and Musk's agenda have faced threats of violence and impeachment.
While the Musk-led entity's attempt to gut the federal government has sparked various legal fights, "this ruling is the first time a federal court has explicitly mandated that Musk and DOGE delete unlawfully obtained data," according to Democracy Forward.
Critics of the administration's attempt to "sabotage" the SSA—which includes cutting phone services, laying off workers, shutting down offices, and stealing seniors' earned benefits—warn that Trump and Musk are pushing for privatization.
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Teachers Union Sues Over Trump Attack on Student Loan Repayment Programs
"By effectively freezing the nation's student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people."
Mar 19, 2025
A leading teachers union announced Wednesday that it is suing the Trump administration for cutting off public service workers with federal student loans from affordable repayment and debt relief programs.
"By effectively freezing the nation's student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college," said American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten in a statement. "The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again."
"The AFT has fought tirelessly to make college more affordable by limiting student debt for public service workers and countless others—progress that's now in jeopardy because of this illegal and immoral decision to deny borrowers their rights under the law,” the union leader continued. "Today, we're suing to restore access to the statutory programs that are an anchor for so many, and that cannot be simply stripped away by executive fiat."
The 1.8 million-member union is represented by the law firm Berger Montague PC and the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), which filed the federal lawsuit late Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
"The U.S. government, through the U.S. Department of Education (ED or the department), is the country's largest creditor of student loans," the complaint notes. "Today, there are nearly 43 million federal student loan borrowers, with approximately $1.62 trillion outstanding in debt."
As the filing details, Congress "designed this federal student loan program to expand access to higher education and increase economic mobility regardless of one's financial station," and specifically "directed ED to offer income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that tie a borrower's monthly payment to their income."
However, under President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the department has shut down IDR plans and not "indicated when it will—if ever—resurrect the programs," the complaint continues. "The result: borrowers are unable to access affordable monthly payment plans, some borrowers are being thrust into default on their debt, and some public service workers are being denied their statutory right to lower their monthly payment and earn credit towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)."
"This is not occurring in a vacuum for student loan borrowers," the document stresses. "It comes in the context of the president repeatedly announcing his plans to close the Department of Education, which was created by an act of Congress. And, it is on the heels of the recent equally unlawful actions to gut critical student loan protections from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
Additionally, as Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Trump has directly attacked the PSLF with an executive order excluding from the debt relief program "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose," targeting groups that help immigrants and transgender youth and organize protests that involve actions such as blocking roads.
"A significant number of AFT's membership has student debt, is working in public service, and has sought or will try to seek access to an IDR plan," the suit explains. "These borrowers simply want to pay back their student loans according to the terms that Congress, and their contracts, provide."
The AFT asked the court to declare that the Education Department is "unlawfully withholding" IDR plans and the PSLF program, and prevent the ED from "collecting from borrowers who are eligible for income-driven repayment until it satisfies its statutory, regulatory, and contractual obligations." The union also wants the court to order the department to fulfil those obligations.
"Student loan borrowers are desperate for help, struggling to keep up with spiking monthly payments in a sinking economy, all while President Trump plays politics with the student loan system," said SBPC executive director Mike Pierce. "Borrowers have a legal right to payments they can afford and today we are demanding that these rights are enforced by a federal judge."
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