Officials from Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union made covert attempts to stop the Lindblom Local School Council (LSC) from selecting a decorated black principal with a 25-Year track record, who is Muslim. When the Council hired Mr. Abdul Muhammad despite this interference, District and CTU officials came together to manufacture a case on which the district ultimately removed Muhammad from Lindblom. However, the case they developed was so hastily and recklessly assembled that it contains numerous logical fallacies and at least 82 provably false statements from witnesses whose own documented behavior demonstrates an alarming lack of competence and deeply questionable ethics. The accusations in the report are so petty and baseless that district officials launched an additional investigation against Muhammad just three days after being forced to release it, knowing that nothing within it justifies removing a principal. On top of this, several actions CPS and CTU officials took to undermine Muhammad were executed–or admitted to–in the presence of witnesses. Most alarmingly, discussions on private CTU listservs, unearthed videos of CTU-paid protestors posing as concerned community members, and the involvement of at least three CPS departments in conjuring the case against Muhammad point to the existence of systems within CTU and CPS that are regularly employed by both CPS and teachers union officials to railroad and frame principals–especially Black principals–who attempt to hold union members and district officials accountable for serving children–especially Black children. This system appears to be sanctioned and facilitated at the highest levels of district management and union leadership. Indeed, Muhammad is one of six Black principals–and eight principals overall–removed this year using similar tactics.

See the documents and hear the first-person testimony in the media below.