WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05) and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act to rein in the National Education Association (NEA) through its federal charter and rededicate the organization to the pursuit of increased student learning and quality education in schools across the United States.
The STUDENT Act makes substantial and much needed limitations and conditions to the NEA charter, bringing it in line with other federally chartered organizations. The bill establishes the following charter changes and best practices:
- Ensures the NEA is no longer exempt from paying D.C. property tax, a wholly unnecessary benefit for the largest union in America.
- Keeps the NEA from engaging in discrimination or employing hiring quotas.
- Requires all members to explicitly consent to paying dues and fees.
- Prevents the corporation and its affiliates from calling for strikes or work stoppages.
- Requires any NEA officer to be a U.S. citizen.
- Makes the corporation keep track and account for all records, meeting notes, and other documents.
- Sends all assets to the Department of the Treasury if the NEA ever dissolves.
- Prohibits the union from encouraging or requiring members to adhere to any critical race theory concept.
“The NEA long ago transformed from an educational association into a political machine, pushing a progressive agenda that puts activists ahead of students’ needs,” said Rep. Fitzgerald. “The STUDENT Act reins in NEA’s federal charter, restores accountability, and demands a return to its original purpose: educating, not indoctrinating, American children.”
“The NEA has exploited its federal charter to advance a radical political agenda that puts ideology before education,” said Sen. Lummis. “Wyoming parents and teachers deserve better than a union that prioritizes woke politics over student achievement. The resolution passed at the NEA Representative Assembly to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League because of its support for Israel is abhorrent and does nothing to stem the rising tide of antisemitic incidents we’ve witnessed nationwide. Federal charters should be reserved for organizations that serve patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purposes – not for unions that push divisive and antisemitic ideologies.”
“Rep. Fitzgerald and Sen. Lummis should be commended for their leadership in introducing the STUDENT Act, which would address some of the NEA’s most concerning conduct and make it more accountable to the public and even its own members,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe. “The Freedom Foundation is proud to stand with these courageous lawmakers in the fight to restore sanity to public education.”
BACKGROUND: The NEA, a teachers’ union, was given a federal charter through an act of Congress in 1906. Congress has granted charters to organizations with a patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purpose, which provides these organizations with prestige and, in some cases, indirect financial benefit. The NEA, the largest union in the United States, while supposedly “non-partisan,” has time and time again supported woke, liberal causes through their endorsements and other political contributions.
A 2023 report by the Freedom Foundation found that because the NEA was incorporated in the District of Columbia prior to its grant of a federal charter, revoking such charter would neither strip it of its corporate existence, nor cause it to alter its operations. Reforming, rather than repealing, the NEA’s federal charter, will provide greater accountability to its members and rid the organization of its partisan slant.
Read the bill text here.
