Freedom Foundation Launches Anti-Union Network for Teachers

The Freedom Foundation, a notorious anti-union advocacy group, has launched a new organization, the Teacher Freedom Alliance, which the foundation’s CEO describes as “an alternative for pro-America educators who seek to restore traditional values in the classroom and provide students with the high-quality education they deserve — free from political influence and union control.”

The Freedom Foundation officially launched its new partner organization in early March after soft launching it at the last two Teacher Freedom Summits, the annual foundation events that teach teachers to bust their own unions.

Among the speakers at the launch event was Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, who, after being denied public funds for the purpose, has most recently been soliciting private donations to fund his campaign to put the God Bless the USA Bible (also known as the “Trump Bible”) into all Oklahoma public school classrooms. Walters also attempted to mandate Bible instruction in school curricula, and is a member of the Heritage Foundation-organized National Council of Conservative State Leaders, as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) first reported.

The Freedom Foundation claimed that 50 educators from 21 states attended the launch party. Also present were “a lot of Freedom Foundation staff members,” according to Eloise Branch, the new network’s executive director.

The Freedom Foundation describes its mission as “battering the entrenched power of left-wing government union bosses who represent a permanent lobby for bigger government, higher taxes, and radical social agendas.” Its strategies for dismantling unions range from developing and promoting anti-worker bills in state houses to recruiting teachers to undercut their unions and filing lawsuits against existing unions for alleged anti-semitism, among others.

Last year, the Freedom Foundation helped fund an alternative employee organization to compete with the Miami Dade teachers’ union in Florida. But the effort failed decisively: teachers voted overwhelmingly — 83% to 17% — to keep their existing union representation with United Teachers of Dade, a local union of the Florida Education Association affiliated with the national American Federation of Teachers.

The Freedom Foundation poured extensive resources into the campaign to unseat the existing teachers’ union, as CMD previously reported, and claimed that its efforts were going to bring the union “to the brink of extinction.”

The Dunn Foundation, founded and run by billionaire futures trader William Dunn, donated $100,000 for the Freedom Foundation’s “Miami Dade School District” work, according to disclosures in its 2023 IRS filing.

The Teacher Freedom Alliance (TFA) appears to be a new attempt to compete with existing unions.

“This isn’t just about leaving unions behind,” Branch said at the launch. “We’re offering superior resources, a community of like-minded educators, and a platform to advocate for excellence without costing you a dime more than your own dedication to your students.”

Labor unions are democratically funded by dues paid by union members, with the amounts typically determined by elected representatives of the union.

After quoting the Bible, an English teacher from Oklahoma opened the TFA launch event with a prayer. “We pray with hope and gratitude that the Teacher Freedom Alliance will work to expose the corruption of the teachers’ unions that work to indoctrinate students, hold back teachers, break down family values, and fail communities,” the teacher said. “May this exposure be a blessing and inspire teachers to leave their unions.”

“We’re going to end the teachers’ unions by ending their monopoly,” Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe said, presumably referring to the exclusive right of labor unions to collectively bargain with employers.

However, Withe did not claim that TFA would attempt to collectively bargain, and the Freedom Foundation did not respond to CMD’s questions regarding whether TFA has the legal right to negotiate working conditions.

Instead, Withe promised that TFA would “provide benefits and resources that are far superior to anything that the teachers unions do.” He claimed that TFA is “working with [its] allies” to provide liability insurance coverage to teachers — a benefit that is typically provided by labor unions.

Withe also said that TFA would circulate curricula that will teach students “to love our country; we’re going to teach them that capitalism is the best economic system ever created.”

Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent (who has also spoken at past Teacher Freedom Summit events) told the audience that he had been working in partnership with the Freedom Foundation to get Oklahoma’s teachers unions “out of the way.”

Push to Defund the Left

The Freedom Foundation’s push to dismantle unions is part of a larger campaign fueled by right-wing cash and dark money to defund and thereby weaken the Democratic Party.

In a January 2016 speech to the Koch astroturf operation Americans for Prosperity, Anne Marie Gurney, the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon coordinator, proclaimed, “Our No. 1 stated focus is to defund the political left.”

Before the Freedom Foundation went national in 2021, its union-busting operation was focused on its home state of Washington as well as California, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

A Freedom Foundation flyer titled “Undue Influence: Public Unions’ Cycle of Power, Electioneering” (obtained and published by CMD in 2018) includes charts and graphs depicting union spending on campaigns and elections in Washington state. The graph “Democrats’ Dependence on Union Funds” lists 31 Washington state Democratic legislators and the campaign contributions each received from unions.

The flyer concludes that “solving the problems associated with union electioneering” requires ending unions’ exclusive representation of workers and eliminating union dues requirements.

The Freedom Foundation is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 48 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom.

A 2016 fundraising letter from SPN’s president and CEO Tracie Sharpe obtained by CMD and published by The Guardian revealed an extensive operation to “defund and defang” unions in order to “deal a major blow to the left’s ability to control government at the state and national levels.”

The State Policy Network presented the Freedom Foundation with its “Best Issue Campaign” award in 2017 for the foundation’s anti-union efforts, according to a photo of the presentation obtained and published by CMD. SPN has funneled more than $500,000 to the Freedom Foundation since 2012.

Who Bankrolls the Freedom Foundation?

The Freedom Foundation brings in $17.2 million in revenue and has $4.7 million in net assets, according to its latest IRS filing obtained by CMD. Two unidentified donors account for $4.9 million — or 29% — of its total revenue, as a July 2024 financial audit (LINK) obtained by CMD discloses.

The majority of donors to the Freedom Foundation are unknown. However, through an analysis of hundreds of IRS filings, CMD was able to identify 48% of its revenues between 2018 and 2023 (though some 2023 IRS filings are not publicly available).

Over two-thirds of those are donor advised funds, which are used to keep the identity of donors hidden.

The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation contributed $3.2 million (2018–23) to the Freedom Foundation, making it the largest known funder.

In internal files examined by CMD, Bradley, which has long funded anti-union work, praised the Freedom Foundation as a “national model” and touted the skills of its “pugilistic” leader Tom McCabe. “Under McCabe, the Freedom Foundation has expanded its own activities to include almost all of the weapons in the arsenal of any good conservative state infrastructure — whether done by several separate entities or, as in this case, by one.”

Bradley has spent millions on so-called “opt-out” campaigns, efforts specifically designed to encourage teachers and other public employees to stop paying union dues.

The Pittsburgh-based Sarah Scaife Foundation is the second biggest identifiable donor to the Freedom Foundation. Backed by the estate of right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, the foundation has given the anti-union group $2.1 million (2018–23).

The Searle Freedom Trust, built from wealth inherited from the pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle & Company, is the third largest known Freedom Foundation donor, with $1.3 million (2018–22) in contributions. The longtime funder of right-wing causes will finally shut down operations on December 31 of this year.

The Freedom Foundation’s third Teacher Freedom Summit will take place this summer in Washington, D.C.