CTU Settles Lawsuit with Joey McDermott
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) ended its lawsuit against Prosser High School Teacher Joey McDermott and agreed on a settlement that will allow him to attend House of Delegates meetings.
The CTU prevented McDermott from attending the House of Delegates meeting last year after he won his election to be a city-wide delegate. He then filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP), and the CTU in turn filed a lawsuit against him for defamation and harassment. They claimed in the suit that he had harassed several female employees at the union.
“Fifteen months ago a Cook County Sheriff served me at home with a lawsuit,” McDermott wrote on his GoFundMe page. “I was sued by my own union for comments I made as a union member. I critiqued my union’s accounting practices and lack of democracy. I shared my opinions on the secrecy and hypocrisy of CTU leaders. I came to the defense of fellow members being mistreated by CTU leaders. This is what I did to get sued.”
The lawsuit cost McDermott a lot of money and stress. He hired a lawyer and ran a GoFundMe page to raise $18k to help defend himself. The lawsuit prevented him from running on the REAL caucus slate in the May 16, 2025 CTU election that CORE’s Stacy Davis Gates won with 64 percent of the vote.
McDermott, who called himself “an outspoken critic of CPS, but also CTU” was a beloved field rep. He complained about unethical practices while working for the teachers union and was fired. Over 1200 people signed a petition to have him reinstated.
The CTU fight against McDermott appeared to be an act to silence union critics. They claim that criticism of the union benefits right-wing anti-union forces such as the IL Policy Institute, Wirepoints and The Chicago Tribune.
Former Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund Trustee and Rickover High School Clinician Phil Weiss filed a lawsuit against the CTU to publish their financial audits per union rules. The CTU said the lawsuit was frivolous because it was filed by the Liberty Justice Center, a right-wing law firm.
But McDermott said he was sued simply for speaking out.
“My name was disparaged and my reputation damaged,” McDermott wrote. “A former CTU president, along with their attorney, spent over ten minutes at a CTU House of Delegates meeting to discuss my lawsuit. Instead of informing delegates of my alleged acts of defamation, they disparaged me. They suggested that I harassed women, that I was racist and that I was aligned with right wing institutions. Their suggestions were intellectually dishonest, without merit and irrelevant to the lawsuit.”