NY law forces professors to be represented by hostile union bosses, but SCOTUS ruling could free public workers nationwide from unwanted union power

Washington, DC (July 22, 2024) – Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their federal civil rights lawsuit charging Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union officials with forcing them to accept the union’s so-called “representation” in violation of their First Amendment rights. The professors, five of whom are Jewish, oppose the PSC union’s public statements and other actions as being strongly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

The professors, Avraham Goldstein, Michael Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, Jeffrey Lax, and Maria Pagano, are receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and The Fairness Center. The lawsuit challenges aspects of New York State’s “Taylor Law”, which grants union bosses monopoly bargaining power in the public sector. This permits union bosses to speak and contract for public workers, including those that want nothing to do with the union. In addition to opposing the union’s extreme ideology, the professors oppose being forced into a “bargaining unit” of instructional staff who share the union’s objectionable beliefs or have employment interests diverging from their own.

The professors’ petition of certiorari points out that the High Court has recognized for decades how public sector monopoly bargaining burdens workers’ First Amendment freedom of association rights. In 1944, the Supreme Court’s decision in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railway Co. recognized how rail union bosses were manipulating their powers over the workplace to discriminate against African-American railway workers. The Supreme Court restated its concerns most recently in the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME decision, with the majority calling monopoly bargaining “a significant impingement on associational freedoms.”

The petition also counters lower courts’ mistaken assertions that the Supreme Court’s 1984 Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight decision disposes of the CUNY professors’ case. As the petition points out, Knight only dealt with public employees’ ability to participate in union meetings and not with the professors’ legal argument that being forced to accept the bargaining power and “representation” of union officials is a violation of First Amendment free association rights. With lower courts so frequently misinterpreting Knight, the petition argues the Supreme Court is needed to clarify the issue, and apply the proper First Amendment analysis to the New York laws’ forced-representation scheme.

“The core issue in this case is straightforward: can the government force Jewish professors to accept the representation of an advocacy group they rightly consider to be anti-Semitic? The answer plainly should be ‘no,’” the petition begins. “The First Amendment protects the rights of individuals, and especially religious dissenters, to disaffliate themselves from associations and speech they abhor.”

“Knight did not sanction a state forcing Jewish faculty members who are ardent Zionists to accept the representation of a union that supports policies they consider anti-Israel,” the petition continues. “The Court should grant this petition to clarify Knight and make clear that the First Amendment protects individuals’ right to dissociate themselves from advocacy groups that support policies contrary to their deeply held beliefs.”

Law Forces Jewish CUNY Professors to Associate with Anti-Israel PSC Union

The professors’ original complaint recounted that several of the professors chose to dissociate from PSC based on a host of discriminatory actions perpetrated by union agents and adherents, including a June 2021 union resolution that the professors viewed as “anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel.”

The complaint said Prof. Michael Goldstein “experienced anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks from members of PSC, including what he sees as bullying, harassment, destruction of property, calls for him to be fired, organization of student attacks against him, and threats against him and his family.” Goldstein has needed a guard to accompany him on campus, the complaint noted.

Prof. Lax, the complaint explained, already received in a separate case a letter of determination from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “that CUNY and PSC leaders discriminated against him, retaliated against him, and subjected him to a hostile work environment on the basis of religion.” Prof. Lax “has felt marginalized and ostracized by PSC because the union has made it clear that Jews who support the Jewish homeland, the State of Israel, are not welcome,” said the complaint. As their petition of certiorari notes, these conflicts have significantly increased since October 7.

SCOTUS Asked to Overturn Laws Imposing Union Power on Public Workers

The petition asks the Supreme Court to take up the case and stop CUNY and the State of New York from letting PSC union bosses impose their “representation” on the professors. It also demands that the court declare unconstitutional Section 204 of New York’s Taylor Law to the extent that it compels the professors under union power.

Issues with union monopoly bargaining power in the academic sphere came into the national spotlight just this month, when the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on fighting antisemitism in unions. There, Will Sussman, a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified about how the law forces him and other graduate students across the nation to associate with union bosses that perpetrate divisive protests and denigrate Israel. Sussman, who is Jewish, filed federal discrimination charges against the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU-UE).

“New York’s legal scheme forces these CUNY professors to associate with union officials who insult their identity and create a work environment rife with bullying and harassment. It’s hard to think of a more obvious violation of the First Amendment,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Supreme Court has expressed concerns with monopoly bargaining for decades, and it’s high time that the justices finally acknowledge the First Amendment protects government employees from being forced to associate with political so-called ‘representation’ they adamantly oppose.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.