CHICAGO | Oct. 9, 2026 — Yesterday, the Liberty Justice Center filed a Notice of Appeal in Weiss v. Chicago Teachers Union, seeking to protect Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members’ right to receive the union’s complete annual financial audits. Union members should not have to sue the organization they pay to represent them to obtain basic financial transparency, especially when the union’s own constitution and bylaws require an audited report to be furnished each year.
The appeal follows a September 11, 2026, ruling by the Circuit Court of Cook County granting summary judgment to CTU after the union posted its complete financial audits to its member portal. Although the union ultimately posted the audits during the litigation, it maintains that it is not required to publish the complete audits each year. Under the trial court’s ruling, CTU could return to providing only condensed audit summaries and require members to inspect the complete records in person.
The Liberty Justice Center filed the lawsuit on October 8, 2024, on behalf of eleven CTU members after the union failed to furnish annual audited reports as required by its governing documents for four years. CTU’s constitution and bylaws state that “[e]ach year, the Financial Secretary shall furnish an audited report of the Union which shall be printed in the Union’s publication.” CTU itself quoted that language in its motion to dismiss.
During the litigation, CTU’s explanation for the missing audits unraveled. CTU initially represented that it had “always made its full annual audits available” to members upon request. Yet its own filings later acknowledged that the union had been “catching up on finalizing audits,” that the 2020, 2021 and 2022 audits were not even completed until after the lawsuit was filed, and that the 2023 audit was still being finalized in 2025. The complete audits were posted only after the lawsuit, a congressional inquiry and scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Labor.
“CTU members should not have to file a new lawsuit every time they want to see the complete financial records their union has promised to provide,” said Ángel Valencia, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “The union’s bylaws require transparency, and CTU members deserve consistent access to complete annual audits—not limited summaries or records made available only when litigation and outside scrutiny force the union to act.”
And the problem has not gone away. CTU’s fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, and the union filed its 2025 federal tax return in May 2026. Yet its 2025 audit still has not been made available to members. CTU members are entitled to ask: When will it be finished, and will they once again have to wait—or sue—to see it?
The appeal seeks to establish that CTU must consistently furnish its members with complete annual audited reports, rather than withholding them or substituting abbreviated summaries and treating access to the complete audits as optional.
Weiss v. Chicago Teachers Union was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, County Department, Chancery Division, on October 8, 2024. All case filings are available here.