From the Liveblog of
Friday, January 10, 2025
US Supreme Court considers taking on case of Jewish NYC professors suing their union
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
The US Supreme Court is considering taking on a case filed by Jewish professors from New York City’s public university system against their union.
The case filed by six professors from the City University of New York (CUNY) — five of whom are Jewish — claims CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress, discriminates against Jewish and Zionist members.
The lawsuit was filed in the federal US Southern District Court of New York in 2022, and stems from a 2021 resolution by the union that condemned Israel and later calls by the union to consider boycotting Israel.
The plaintiffs said they were discriminated against following the resolution and were forced to resign from the union.
The essence of the lawsuit is a challenge to a New York State law that grants union leaders bargaining power for public sector employees, including employees who do not want to affiliate with the union. That law, known as the Taylor Law, violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by allowing the union leaders to impose representation on the professors, the lawsuit argues. Under the state law, the Professional Staff Congress is the only faculty union with which CUNY engages in collective bargaining.
“New York’s Taylor Law prevents the Professors from dissociating themselves from PSC’s representation to protest its anti-Semitic conduct and other failings. The Professors are being compelled, against their will, to associate with an advocacy group they oppose,” says a brief to the court filed last month.
The professors are represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Fairness Center.
“No public worker should be forced to associate with union officials who denigrate their culture and identity. But unfortunately, this is exactly what New York State’s Taylor Law and many similar laws around the country allow,” Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said in a statement last month.
“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 accept ‘representation’ they adamantly oppose.”
The US district court dismissed the case in 2023, and an appeals court rejected it last year, prompting the plaintiffs to appeal to the Supreme Court.
A court listing for the case confirms justices are scheduled to confer on the case today, and the court is expected to announce its decision on whether to take the case on Monday.
