During that time he mentored several UFT staff people, including Burke Probitsky and Robert Lieberman and elected leaders.
Selden's new prominence as head of a major union, and his opposition to the Vietnam War, landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.
The New York merger also meant that AFT had grown large enough for George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, to judge that the teachers' union deserved a seat on the Big Labor's all-powerful executive council.
At the AFT's annual convention that year, in Toronto, Shanker buried Selden, winning almost 80 percent of the delegates' votes.
Selden retreated to Michigan where he remained active for several years in various union posts, including a spell as executive director of a local American Association of University Professors chapter.