Stacy Davis Gates has served as the Political and Legislative Director for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) for the past six years. While at the CTU, Ms. Davis Gates has been the architect of bold political and legislative campaigns for the schools and city that all Chicagoans deserve. She has raised millions of dollars to elect classroom teachers to all levels of local government and to challenge school privatizers and union-busters, most prominently Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his rubber-stamp City Council in 2015.

Ms. Davis Gates has also spearheaded successful statewide legislative campaigns to pass the strongest charter school accountability measures in the country, to restore the bargaining rights of Chicago Public Schools employees, and to fully fund public education by ending tax loopholes for the 1%. In 2017, Ms. Davis Gates was elected Chair of United Working Families, an independent political organization by and for working class people and our movements. She also serves as a board member for ACRE, The Action Center on Race & the Economy, a nexus for organizations working at the intersection of racial justice and Wall Street accountability.

Ms. Davis Gates is currently on leave from the classroom, where she taught high school social studies for over a decade at Englewood and Clemente High Schools and Mason Community Links High School. She attended Saint Mary’s College, the University of Notre Dame, and Concordia University. Ms. Davis Gates lives on the south side of Chicago with her husband and three children.