Randi Weingarten, the $469,442-a-year president of the American Federation of Teachers, used union money — teacher dues — to bankroll her book "Why Fascists Fear Teachers," then set up a sweet little royalty arrangement so she could personally cash in on the sales. Teachers paid for the book to exist. Then they got to buy it. The grift has layers, folks.
You almost have to admire the audacity. Almost. The woman who kept schools closed while collecting a half-million-dollar salary has now figured out how to double-dip on the people she claims to represent. Somewhere, a first-grade teacher buying her own classroom supplies with her own paycheck just felt a disturbance in the force.
According to an investigation by the Freedom Foundation, the AFT funneled more than $1.4 million in union expenses into Weingarten's little literary vanity project. That's $1.4 million in dues money from the AFT's 1.8 million members — teachers, paraprofessionals, and support staff who probably thought their money was going toward, oh I don't know, actual education advocacy.
Let's follow the money, because it's a beautiful trail of shamelessness. The AFT paid $375,000 in advance royalties through InkWell Management, Weingarten's literary agency, which itself collected $64,090. The law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP — whose attorney Charles Moerdler is thanked in the book — raked in a cool $977,275. Progressive commentator Sally Kohn, listed as an "indispensable" collaborator, pulled in over $400,000 between September 2024 and April 2025 — triple what she'd been paid in previous years combined.
But wait, there's more. A Delaware LLC called "Teachers Want What Kids Need" was incorporated in June 2024 and received $125,000. Another $125,000 went to combined AFT-affiliated charities — the AFT Disaster Relief Fund and the AFT Educational Foundation. Even the fact-checker got $6,000, and some D.C. photographer scored $5,212 for Weingarten's headshot. Thirty AFT staff members are credited in the acknowledgments. This wasn't a book — it was a patronage machine.
Now here's the kicker. When RedState reported on the whole arrangement, Weingarten fired back with this gem: "This desperate fishing expedition by a far right group that refuses to disclose its donors only proves my book's point — that Fascists Fear Teachers." She also insisted that "any and all proceeds from the book are shared equally." Shared equally with whom, exactly? The Delaware LLC nobody's ever heard of?
As the Freedom Foundation put it: "Maybe her follow-up should be titled: Why Teachers Fear Teachers Unions." Hard to argue with that.
Let's be clear about what happened here. A union boss used her members' dues to fund the production of a book that she then personally profits from through royalties. The book itself is called "Why Fascists Fear Teachers" — a title so breathlessly self-important it sounds like it was generated by a woke AI having a panic attack. And the publisher's own description calls it "a manifesto for our time." A manifesto. Paid for by teachers. Profiting the boss.
This is the same Randi Weingarten who fought tooth and nail to keep schools closed during COVID while private school kids and the children of the wealthy kept right on learning. The same union boss who has presided over plummeting test scores and a nationwide teacher shortage. But sure, what the AFT really needed was to drop $1.4 million on a book nobody outside the progressive book club circuit will ever read.
The teachers' union racket is one of the greatest scams in American public life. You pay dues whether you want to or not in many states. Those dues fund political campaigns you may disagree with. And now, apparently, they fund your boss's book deal too. It's a closed loop of grift, and the only people who lose are the teachers and the kids.
But hey, at least the headshot photographer got paid.