Teachers Sue PSEA in Landmark Case

Jane Ladley was a special education teacher in Chester County for more than 25 years until she retired this year. She may have left teaching, but she has a bone to pick with the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the union that represents some 180,000 educators around the state.

In a landmark step, Ladley and Lancaster County teacher Chris Meier sued the PSEA for violating their rights as “religious objectors.” It’s the first case for newly established public interest law firm, the Fairness Center.

Ladley and Meier are fee payers—teachers who don’t officially join the union, but by contract rules and state law are forced to pay a “fair share fee” to the union to cover representation. However, both teachers became religious objectors who, because their faith conflicts with union support of policies such as abortion, decided to have their fee instead donated to a charity.

In this case, both teachers got stuck in limbo. The PSEA accepted their religious objections, but have nixed the charities the teachers chose. Christen Smith from Capitolwire (paywall) reported on Ladley’s experience:

“I first chose a scholarship in our local community for students who showed an interest in the Constitution, which is definitely close to my heart,” she said in editorial submitted to newspapers by her attorney, Nate Bohlander, assistant general counsel for the Harrisburg-based Fairness Center. “They looked at the organization sponsoring it and said they would not agree to it based on it being a political group.”

Ladley said she searched for another charity with a similar mission — she chose one that offers classes on the Constitution, instead — but the PSEA hasn’t approved it to date, either.

“They are telling me which groups I have to choose,” she said. “It’s a wrong that needs to be righted. I’m doing this on principle and for the other teachers coming up through the ranks, so that they have these options available to them.”

The PSEA has 20 days from the filing of the lawsuit (September 18) to respond.

According to the Fairness Center, the PSEA is exploiting a loophole in Pennsylvania law that effectively silences teachers: The 1988 agency shop law requires the money to go to a “non-religious charity” both union and teacher agree on, but doesn’t prescribe a procedure or deadline to reach that agreement.

Ladley says the amount of money at stake or whether she’s still in the classroom is irrelevant. “Why should I have to fund an organization that counters my faith and values so I can work as a teacher?” she said. Even if only future Pennsylvania teachers see their rights better protected, for her, it’s worth the fight.

For more on the teachers’ groundbreaking lawsuit, see stories at PennLive, LancasterOnline, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the below TV report from Fox43.