(Off the Press)—The politically powerful Chicago Teachers Union can’t escape a lawsuit accusing them of violating their members’ rights by refusing to release years’ worth of financial audits, allegedly in breach of their own governing rules.
On May 14, a Cook County judge rejected the CTU’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit, as well as to strike from the record written testimony from the lead plaintiff, detailing scandalous accusations against the union concerning its alleged retaliation against him and other mistreatment for challenging the union’s leaders.
The ruling means the CTU will need to either seek to settle the case or formally respond to the lawsuit and its allegations for the first time and potentially open their records and communications to the plaintiffs as part of the discovery process in proceedings to come.
“The core allegations of the Complaint … are sufficient,” wrote Cook County Judge David Atkins in his order. “It is axiomatic that a complaint should only be dismissed where no set of facts would entitle a plaintiff to relief, and here Plaintiffs have alleged that the CTU is required by its Constitution to ‘furnish an audited report of the Union which shall be printed in the Union’s publication,’” but has failed to do so since 2020.
“The CTU does not even directly dispute this…,” Atkins noted.
The case landed in Cook County court last October, when attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center, of Chicago, filed suit against the CTU on behalf of a group of Chicago Public Schools educators and staff, who are also members of the CTU.