(Illinois Policy)—Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates has said some wild things, made enemies at other unions, prompted her members to sue, ran a deficit, didn’t pay her taxes or utilities and sent her son to private school instead of letting her members educate him.
She faces a union election May 16. She has opposition. And she has a lot to answer for.
The election features the incumbent Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators and Davis Gates and opposing challenger Erica Meza and the “Respect, Educate, Advocate, Lead” or REAL caucus.
The race between REAL and CORE affects all taxpayers. CTU is currently part of a coalition pushing state lawmakers to pass $7.3 billion in new taxes and is spreading its gospel of strikes, politics and Socialist doctrine to New York and other blue cities.
Meza said it’s time for a change in leadership.
“Our leadership is very obsessed with politics,” Meza told Fox 32. “We have really fractured our union members. There’s a lot of dissenting voices that are ignored. And we’ve fractured our relationships with our sister union allies, our labor allies, our community members and some of our parents.”
Davis Gates’ tenure as president of CTU has largely been about politics, but it’s also been about her gaffs, her dust-ups, and her personal misdeeds and hypocrisy. Now 60% of Chicago voters disapprove of the union.
Here are some of the lowlights that have marked Davis Gates’ leadership.
March 2025: Davis Gates refused to shake hands with and cursed at senior SEIU executive
There was an altercation between Davis Gates and SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director Anthony Driver at a fundraiser hosted by Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch in March 2025. Davis Gates reportedly approached Driver, extended her hand for a handshake before pulling it back and saying to Driver, “Y’all ain’t shit and you ain’t shit.”
January 2025: Davis Gates mocked CPS CEO Pedro Martinez by comparing him to a “terrible” special education student who can’t be suspended
At a January 2025 union delegates meeting with hundreds of elected union members related to contract negotiations, Davis Gates compared CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to a “terrible” special education student who can’t be suspended because of policy limitations.
The remark came under fire by special education advocates and parents who called it “appalling” and “heartbreaking.” Davis Gates later apologized.
CTU’s internal rules are clear: an annual audit must be performed and published each year. But the last full audit was released Sept. 9, 2020, and covered the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 fiscal years. Complete audits for 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 fiscal years have not been released.
When questioned about the missing audits by a CTU member, Davis Gates personally attacked the member, labeling the call for the release of the required audits a racist “dog whistle.”
CTU has since posted short, three-page “audit reports,” but they are “not audit reports by any commonly understood definition of the term,” according to the Liberty Justice Center.
September 2024: Davis Gates calls prominent Chicago journalist a “stalker”
In an appearance on The Ben Joravsky Show, Davis Gates called a prominent Chicago journalist, Paris Schutz, a “stalker” for questioning her following a public media appearance on WTTW. She didn’t back down from this comment, adding, “I know what I’m saying.”
Schutz and other journalists were seeking information about Davis Gates’ role in trying to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez after he refused to endorse a $300 million payday loan to cover the union’s expensive contract demands.
January 2024: CPS principal and former CTU delegate files police report after Davis Gates threatens physical violence
Davis Gates allegedly made threatening comments at a January 2024 union meeting against a Chicago Public Schools principal, urging union members to commit violence against Stevenson Elementary School Principal William Hozian. According to the police report filed by the principal, Davis Gates said, “In talking to my Stevenson brothers and sisters, I told them they should punch their principal in the face.”
In December 2024, in response to a critic on social media, Davis Gates wrote, “Y’all slow in real life?” Later in the same post, she said, “Y’all are either monsters or slow pokes or both.”
December 2023: Davis Gates owed the city nearly $5,600 for utilities
Davis Gates started a payment plan for $5,100 in water, sewer and garbage bills in July 2023 – but almost immediately defaulted, according to records obtained by the Illinois Policy Institute. At one time, she owed just over $5,700. Payments were sporadic in 2023, then became monthly in November 2023 when the Illinois Policy Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act request and wrote about her past-due bills and default on a payment plan agreement.
The institute filed a new FOIA request on April 3, 2024, with the Chicago Department of Finance. After the department asked for two extensions of five working days because “there is a need for consultation” with other city entities, the FOIA response on Davis Gates’ city utility bills finally arrived showing she had days earlier paid them all off: $5,381 paid on April 15.
As of 2023, Chicago had seen $6.4 billion in unpaid fees, fines and other debts pile up since 1990. Comptroller Chasse Rehwinkel said those skirting responsibility were “hurting the residents of the city of Chicago.”
November 2023: Davis Gates was taking a homeowner’s tax break on an Indiana property she didn’t live in
Davis Gates pushes for the wealthy to pay their “fair share,” but she was receiving an Indiana property tax deduction reserved for owners who actually occupy their homes, according to public records obtained by the Illinois Policy Institute. She should have been paying four times more in property taxes. The county removed the deduction and compelled Gates to pay three years’ worth of back taxes.
October 2023: CTU ran its first reported deficit under the leadership of Davis Gates
CTU for the first time reported spending more money than it took in during its 2023 fiscal year, according to the union’s report with the U.S. Department of Labor. Specifically, CTU reported receipts of $35.5 million in 2023. But it spent nearly $500,000 more than that, reporting almost $36 million in disbursements. It underscored members’ concerns about union leaders failing to properly handle union funds or to provide required reporting to members.
October 2023: CTU spent nearly three times more on politics in 2023 under the leadership of Davis Gates
CTU spent more money on “political activities and lobbying” in its 2023 fiscal year than it did in any previous year since it started filing federal reports with the U.S. Department of Labor. Specifically, the union nearly tripled what it spent on politics in 2023, from just over $1 million in 2022 to over $3 million in 2023. At least a portion of its 2023 political spending came from member dues without consulting the members themselves.
September 2023: Davis Gates placed her son in private school while crushing educational options for low-income children
While advocating the end of Illinois’ only private school choice program – a program that allowed private donors to get a tax credit for funding scholarships for low-income children – Davis Gates’ hypocrisy was exposed when it was revealed she had placed her own son in private school. She stated she and her husband made the choice “so [their son] could live out his dream of being a soccer player while also having a curriculum that can meet his social and emotional needs.” Her advocacy against the scholarship program effectively crushed the dreams of more than 15,000 low-income children who lost the scholarships provided by the now-defunct program. Davis Gates’ income at the time was over $289,000, or 543% more than the families she fought to deny scholarships.
March 2023: CTU bankrolled Brandon Johnson’s mayoral election without consulting members
CTU funneled over $2.3 million into the campaign of Brandon Johnson, one of its former employees. Its spending was met with internal criticism from members and potentially violated union rules by using member dues for politics without their approval. The action prompted an unfair labor practice complaint against the union.