When we at the Education Action Group Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, non-profit organization, launched AFTexposed.com this fall to examine the agenda, finances and tactics of the American Federation of Teachers, little did we realize we would draw such an immediate, ugly response.
On Friday, October 9, we received a threatening letter from the AFT’s general counsel (which was carbon copied to AFT President Randi Weingarten), demanding we immediately stop using the acronym ‘AFT’ anywhere on the site, effectively neutering it, and turn over the domain registration to the union. [See the letter here.] How can we have a website completely dedicated to analyzing the AFT and its agenda if we aren’t allowed to use the acronym ‘AFT?’
It was an outrageous attempt to squelch our First Amendment rights to voice our opinions, which are based in fact.
For example, the site breaks down the financial reports, known as LM-2 filings, that the AFT is required to submit to the federal Department of Labor. The reports detail union income and expenditures, including staff and leadership compensation, lobbying expenses, and political advocacy donations.
We’re sure the AFT, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, is not thrilled that we’re bringing attention to the fact that earlier this year, it gave nearly $50,000 to the embattled radical group ACORN, which has been accused of offenses ranging from voter registration fraud, questionable use of tax dollars and aiding a presumed pimp and prostitute to secure a home for apparently illegal purposes. That information came from the LM-2 report, found on the site.
Prior to 2009, AFTexposed.com has been able to account for nearly $1.3 million in teacher dues dollars going to support ACORN’s activities.
The American Federation of Teachers apparently will stop at nothing to squash dissent. We will stand up to its attempt to silence us and neuter our website.
The AFT will have to figure out a way to put a website in cement shoes to make it disappear. But maybe we shouldn’t be giving them any ideas.
It’s not as if we can’t take what we dish out. A different teachers union, in our home state of Michigan, has already launched an “exposed”-type site focusing on attacking us personally, as well as our work. We would never seek to stomp on that union’s First Amendment rights to critique us and our small organization, because that’s the American way. Yet that’s precisely what the AFT is attempting to do to us.
For being so well known for bullying school administrators and school boards at bargaining time, it turns out the elephant really is afraid of the mouse.
A response letter, written by Clark M. Neily III of the Institute for Justice, can be viewed here.
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