January 3,2003
Catherine A. Boudreau, President
Anne Wass, Vice President
Edward P. Sullivan, Executive Director-Treasurer
TO: Local Association Presidents
FROM: Catherine A. Boudreau, President
Anne Wass, Vice President
Resolution on the Crisis in Iraq
For your information below is action taken by the Board of Directors at their December 7, 2002 meeting.
VOTED that the MTA Board of Directors call for the resolution of the crisis with Iraq through international diplomacy rather than through armed conflict. Further, the MT A President will write a letter on behalf of the MT A Board of Directors to President Bush and to The Boston Globe communicating our action, and that this letter be published in the MT4 ~. (Rationale: As educators, it is imperative that we support peaceful resolution to conflicts and prevent loss of life.)
The Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Teachers Association has passed a resolution calling for a diplomatic rather than military solution to the crisis with Iraq. As educators, our first business is to provide our students, pre-kindergarten through graduate school, with the highest quality public education possible. As unionists, our first business is to advocate for the resources to make quality education possible. But we would be remiss as educators, unionists and as citizens if we were not concerned - and actively concerned - with the events that shape our world.
This crisis compels our attention and our response. In our classrooms, we teach our students to abjure violence in favor of mediation and negotiation. But if war comes, it will be these students and their peers who will do the fighting and dying. We owe it to them, just as surely as we owe them an education, to protest any actions or policies that might lead to war before all peaceful alternatives are exhausted.
We do not overestimate the power of our protest. We can only hope that
our small voice - and the voices
of similarly minded citizens across our nation - will be heard and
heeded by our elected leaders.
Last revised on February 25, 2003
by the Webmaster.