The Chicago Teachers Union is taking aim at the Illinois Policy Institute and its legal arm, claiming in a defamation lawsuit filed Monday that social media posts and articles bashing the union’s finances and its president Stacy Davis Gates — and branding the union “toxic” — are part of a “deliberate campaign” to harm the union’s reputation.The CTU is framing the suit as Davis Gates “standing up to the multi-million dollar marketing firm, Illinois Policy Institute," the Liberty Justice Center and Austin Berg, the nonprofit’s marketing vice president. The law firm identifies itself as nonpartisan, but it is known for taking on a high-profile conservative legal case before the Supreme Court that undermined the power of labor unions.“Falsely accusing a labor union of fraud, dishonest accounting, and misuse of funds strikes at the heart of the Union’s integrity, fitness, and ability to represent and advocate for its approximately 30,000 member-educators,” the suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, states.The Chicago Teachers Union is a political powerhouse, helping to elect Mayor Brandon Johnson and propelling preferred political candidates throughout the city. The suit comes ahead of crucial school board races in the November election — and as Johnson mulls another mayoral run. John Owen, attorney for the CTU, would not comment on the timing of the suit but pointed the finger at the defendants’ “ongoing campaign.”“These statements, the first incidents we refer to, started in August of 2025. But that’s been an ongoing campaign to attack and smear the union,” Owen said. “And the union at this point has decided to stand up for itself and hold these defendants accountable for these defamatory statements.”Most of what the suit calls defamatory statements relate to CTU audits that began in October 2024, when the Liberty Justice Center and four CTU members filed a suit claiming the union did not produce annual financial audit reports. That case is still pending in Cook County.The CTU, which regularly slams the Trump administration, also in January received a letter from the U.S. Department of Labor informing the union of an audit of its annual financial report. That came after an inquiry by a Republican-led U.S. House committee last year. Davis Gates said in an interview with WBEZ that she believed the union was targeted politically because it “defends, protects, we expand the public good in ways that are oppositional to the right wing.” The CTU has advocated for Black, transgender and immigrant students.Debates about the transparency of the CTU’s finances date back to 2024 and stem from one member’s complaint that the union is withholding financial information from members. CTU officials in January provided WBEZ/Sun-Times with a sign-in sheet that showed one of that suit’s plaintiffs had viewed the union’s audit reports, which don’t include information about the CTU’s foundation. The CTU has insisted that its constitution does not require the release of the full audits that also include the foundation’s finances.The new lawsuit claims the finalization of the audit reports were delayed for “innocuous reasons,” including that the finalization for fiscal year 2020 through 2023 were delayed due to complications from the pandemic and staffing turnover, as well as the impact of a lawsuit to protect pension benefits. The suit says the reports have been available to CTU members for review.The suit includes an Aug. 22, 2025, social media post by the Liberty Justice Center, which features a cartoon of Davis Gates and the words “Cooked Books,” mimicking the branding of the restaurant Cracker Barrel. The union says that post was “part of Defendant’s strategy to ‘make the union itself toxic’ through sustained negative messaging.” And the suit says the “cooked book” statement was defamatory because it “falsely imputed CTU’s engagement in criminal conduct.”The union is also taking issue with several IPI statements, including a repeated label of the union as being “toxic,” which it called “a premeditated effort to hurt” the union.The suit also takes aim at an IPI article from October 2025 that said the union is refusing to show its members the audits — saying the article omitted the “facts" regarding the availability of the audits and the reason for the timing delays. And it includes a social media post by the Liberty Justice Center in November 2025, featuring an AI-generated image of a cookbook called “Cooking The Books by Stacy Davis Gates and Jackson Potter,” referencing Davis Gates and the CTU vice president.The suit claims that image is evidence of “actual malice” by the defendants and part of their “deliberate campaign to harm CTU’s reputation.”The suit is seeking a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, including compensatory damages, punitive damages, the costs of the suit and additional relief. It’s also seeking a jury trial.The defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening.Contributing: WBEZ education reporter Sarah Karp ...read more read less