CUNY profs appeal to SCOTUS to leave anti-Semitic public sector union
Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, have sued to be “freed” of a public sector union that they believe is anti-Semitic.
The National Right to Work Foundation and the Fairness Center, which are representing the professors, have appealed to the Supreme Court to hear the case.
Six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, have sued to leave a public sector union that they believe is anti-Semitic.
The professors are Avraham Goldstein, Michael Goldstein, Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Mitchell Langbert, Jeffrey Lax, and Maria Pagano.
The National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW) and the Fairness Center, which are representing the professors, recently appealed to the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The groups argue that compulsory union representation violates citizens’ right to freedom of association.
The professors each resigned their membership from the union, CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY), following that group’s issuance of a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel resolution in 2021.
“[A]s an academic labor union committed to anti-racism, academic freedom, and international solidarity among workers, the PSC-CUNY cannot be silent about the continued subjection of Palestinians to the state-supported displacement, occupation, and use of lethal force by Israel,” the union’s resolution stated.
The professors have for years stated that they should not be forced to contribute to a group that directly attacks their beliefs and identity.
“I had paid thousands of dollars in union dues for workplace representation, not for political statements or attacks on my beliefs and identity,” wrote Professor Goldstein in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in 2022. “I decided to resign my union membership and naively thought I could leave the union and its politics behind for good.”
“I was wrong,” Goldstein continued. “Union officials refused my resignation and continued taking union dues out of my paycheck.”
“New York law shouldn’t provide cover for unions at the cost of individual freedom,” Goldstein also wrote. “Nor should it countenance forcing Jews to associate with a union that doesn’t want them around.”
Due to a New York legal provision called “Taylor Law,” which NRTW says enables union bosses to be granted “monopoly bargaining power in the public sector” and thereby allow them to “speak and contract for public workers, including those that want nothing to do with the union.”
In their complaint, the professors ask for that provision to be removed, or at least amended. A New York judge rejected the professors’ suit in 2022, asserting that required union representation is constitutional.
“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,” NRTW explained in its July 22 press release. “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.”
“Our clients’ case puts in stark terms the First Amendment problems with allowing public-sector union officials to force an entire bargaining unit to accept their representation,” Nathan McGrath, president and general counsel for the Fairness Center, said in a statement to Campus Reform. “No one should have to associate with a union they believe hates them.”
Campus Reform has contacted the City University of New York for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.