DETROIT – Detroit Federation of Teachers President Steve Conn is gone, as president and as a union member.

The union’s executive board posted a notice of Conn’s removal on the DFT website and detailed the charges that led to his ouster. The union statement said Conn failed to attend an informal meeting to resolve the issues, and did not speak during a two-day trial last week, The Detroit News reports.

The move is the first time in the DFT’s 84-year history that a leader has been removed and expelled from the union, Keith Johnson, former union president and arch enemy of Conn, told the Detroit Free Press.

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“When you have a president who engages in or is alleged to have engaged in misconduct, it certainly brings into question for the membership the strength and integrity of the union,” Johnson told the news site. “It doesn’t look good.”

The DFT’s executive board voted to convict Conn, 57, of five of six misconduct charges lodged against him by his political opponents within the union, though he denies any wrongdoing.

Those charges allege Conn failed to preside over union meetings, illegally called special meetings, attempted to affiliate the DFT with the radical social justice group By Any Means Necessary, did not investigate abuse of members, failed to address a physical assault of a member, and did not send dues money to the union’s parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, the News reports.

Conn issued a statement shortly after the board vote that made it clear he’s not going to take the decision lying down.

“Conn was defiant, vowing to seek reinstatement by the local’s members next month,” according to the news site. “Under the union’s bylaws, a two-thirds vote of members in attendance at the local’s next regular membership meeting would be required to overturn the executive board’s action.”

If that doesn’t work, Conn can appeal the decision to the AFT’s Public Review Board.

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“On August 12, 2015, I received notice of an inexcusable crime: the Executive Board has attempted a coup, conspiring among themselves to remove me from office and to expel me from the DFT. They have attempted to usurp the democratic authority of the membership,” Conn wrote in the statement, according to Click On Detroit.

He called the board’s action an “egregious abuse of power.”

“My declaration to you, the membership of the DFT, is that the executive board will not get away with their act of betrayal. I will not yield. I will not allow their clique of bureaucrats to overthrow our union democracy,” he wrote.

Conn is a self-proclaimed socialist who has long criticized DFT leadership for not fighting harder against pay cuts or other union concessions. He’s also an avid critic of Gov. Rick Snyder and his appointed emergency financial manager, Darnell Earley. Conn believes Snyder’s aim is “to privatize and turn education into a profit making business,” CBS Detroit reports.

The union charges that led to Conn’s removal mostly stem from his relationship with BAMN, which has disrupted school board meetings with violence in the past.

“There was testimony that BAMN members attended and participated in the January 25 special membership meeting and were abusive to DFT members,” the executive board notice stated, according to the News. “At the February regular membership meeting the members voted to exclude them from the meeting. President Conn then failed and refused to preside over the next three regular membership meetings and instead held three more special membership meetings.”

At the Jan. 25 meeting, the notice said, a DFT member alleges they were “physically threatened … by persons she believe to be BAMN members.” That same complainant, who was not named, alleges a Conn supporter also harassed her at a special meeting March 29.

Conn also drew union scorn when he encouraged teachers to attend a protest against Snyder’s reform plans for DPS, which caused the closure of 18 DPS schools because about 500 of the schools’ 2,800 teachers followed the directive.

Former DFT executive vice president Edna Reaves lost to Conn for the DFT presidency in a runoff election in January. She told the News the problems with Conn’s leadership were predictable, and members are already asking her to run for his vacated seat.

“When Mr. Conn came in with the attitude that he was a one-shot president, I knew there would be problems,” Reeves said. “I think it is for the best, that he was voted out of office, but it puts a black eye on the DFT because we couldn’t work it out.”