Washington State Teachers Receive Refunds From Union
Author: Jim Burns - Senior Staff Writer
cse.org
(CNSNews.com) - Teachers in Washington state are receiving refunds for money that was taken out of their paychecks and spent for political purposes, the result of a settlement reached in a court case filed against the Washington Education Association by state Attorney General Christine Gregoire.
The WEA is appealing the decision, according to its communications director Debra Carnes.
"The decision is on appeal, but in the meantime we are adhering to the judge's request," Carnes said in an interview with CNSNews.com. "They are getting a refund of their complete membership fees."
According to its President Bob Williams, the decision pleased the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF), an Olympia-based policy research organization and advocate of free speech and fair elections, who sued the union along with a group of teachers.
"This is a major victory in the battle for free speech and fair elections, but it is only the first step," said Williams.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor recently ordered the WEA to pay $190,000 in legal fees to the Washington State attorney general's office and reimburse another $143,000 to teachers, whose dues were illegally spent on politics.
The WEA, the state branch of the National Education Association, was slapped with a $400,000 fine last July for the same offense.
Critics of the WEA say the union pursues a liberal social agenda and expects teachers to fund that agenda with their dues.
"They support [the] homosexual ... agenda as far as teaching about it in the schools [and] having extra training on how to accommodate open homosexuals," said Olympia public school teacher Forrest Clark in an August 2001 interview with CNSNews.com.
"They also are very pro-choice, pro-abortion, to include birth control available in school clinics without parental notification or approval," Clark added.
The $773,000 in fines and legal fees are "by far the largest ever imposed in Washington for campaign finance violations, approached only by a previous $430,000 penalty for similar infractions charged to WEA in 1998," according to the Education Intelligence Agency, an education research, analysis and investigation agency. |
