Rebecca Friedrichs On "Standing Up To Goliath"

Former CIR plaintiff and California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs has told the inside story of her decades long struggle against teachers unions in her new book, Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country.

For twenty-eight years, Friedrichs served as a elementary school teacher in California public schools. She’s often told the story of how she first realized the union didn’t have the best interests of her students when she discovered her school was unable to discipline an abusive teacher.  As Rebecca explains in the book, “Throughout my 28 years as a teacher forced to fund unions, and two decades as a parent with children in union controlled public schools, I have witnessed union forces bully and intimidate teachers, parents, and children, and work overtime to create a culture of fear.”

The lessons Rebecca learned in her decades of teaching eventually led her to join forces with CIR in her case, Friedrichs v. CTA. CIR and Rebecca took her case all the way to the Supreme Court and was the first case to make the pure First Amendment claim that all teachers had a right to decide for themselves whether or not to join a union.

Standing Up To Goliath gives the inside look at the decades long struggle that led to Friedrichs v. CTA and the end of compelled union dues. The book will be released on November 20th.