A group of City University of New York (CUNY) professors is suing their faculty union for promoting anti-Semitism, believing the Supreme Court could be their “only hope” in a legal battle. .
New York state law requires teachers to participate in funding the union's collective bargaining arm, even if they choose to leave the union. The department effectively administers pay increases, benefits, leave, and other policies for both union and nonunion faculty.
In 2021, one such faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC), declared a group of six professors to be anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel. adopted a resolution in support of the Palestinian people. Those professors have since chosen to leave the union, but under state law they are still required to belong to the same union and represent them in negotiations.
“For more than 15 years, my family and I have suffered severe anti-Semitic harassment and persecution at the hands of the Soviet Union,” math professor Abraham Goldstein said in a statement. “I had hoped that this was all behind me. But now I am forced to associate with a union that makes anti-Semitic political statements in my name without my permission or consent.” died.”
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Abraham Goldstein, a professor at the State University of New York, is one of six professors challenging New York state's law requiring union representation. (Credit: Fairness Center)
The Supreme Court decided in 2018 in a case called Janus v. AFSCME., The law said unaffiliated public officials could not be forced to pay fees to unions, saying doing so would violate their First Amendment rights.
However, just before the high court handed down its Janus decision, New York state passed a law known as the Taylor Act (which governs public sector collective bargaining within the state) to reduce the obligations that public sector unions owe to non-union members. Act) was amended.
Before the Taylor Act, unions were required to fairly represent both members and non-union members.
The Fairness Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm that represents professors, says that the Taylor Act changes would mean that “unions like the PSC are free to treat non-union members like these professors as second-class employees.” , the services provided to them will be inferior to those provided to other union members.” members. ”
The professors' brief states: “Plaintiffs' forced participation in the bargaining unit disadvantages them in their terms of employment and in their relationships with colleagues and the public at large.” .
The professors, all but one of whom are Jewish, are suing the union, university and city on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
”[T]Continued disenfranchisement…caused by state law and defendants' contracts, policies, and practices that designate the PSC as the exclusive bargaining representative with the plaintiff's employer, placing the plaintiff in a distinct bargaining unit with others who do not share the same interests. Force. “We are requesting that some plaintiffs continue to provide financial subsidies for PSC speeches even if they cease to be members of the union,” the legal filing states.
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A protester stomps on an Israeli flag during a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Chancellor's Office at the State University of New York in midtown Manhattan on November 2, 2023. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
“The designation of the PSC as exclusive bargaining representative and the imposition of Plaintiffs' participation in the bargaining unit violate Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to speech, petition, and association.”
The case was filed in district court in 2022. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case last November and is expected to issue an opinion in the coming weeks. The professors say they plan to appeal to the Supreme Court if they don't get their way.
“I think our only hope is the United States Supreme Court,” Professor Jeffrey Lacks said in an interview on FOX News Digital.
“And my message is to the Supreme Court…We're not just trying to take a different position than the union. We're not just saying the union's views on Jews are abhorrent to us. No. That's not why we're saying, 'We want to leave this union,''' Lux said.
Lacks, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, said he believes the foundation of the union's anti-Semitism is based on Marxist teachings and that its members subscribe to those teachings.
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The Fairness Center represents six CUNY professors fighting the faculty union. (Credit: Fairness Center)
Professor Lux said anti-Semitic ideology has been smoldering on campus for years, and in the wake of the devastating attack carried out in Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, anti-Semitic activity has increased on university campuses. “I wouldn't be surprised'' to see it change, he said. He also places some of the blame on the unions that promote anti-Israel demonstrations on campus.
“These unions have almost unlimited funds. They're not using it to negotiate, they're not using it to improve pay or working conditions for their employees…They're not using it for political They are using it for political and ideological gain and to indoctrinate students,” Lux said.
In response to a request for comment Friday, a union spokesperson told FOX News Digital in an email:[t]Goldstein's lawsuit is without merit. ”
“This bill was brought by City University faculty, not members of the PSC, and funded by the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation in another attempt to exclude unions.” It is written in “Representation of all workers in our stores is the foundation of union power. It brings together the power of workers and gives us a united force to win better wages and working conditions. ”
“The core questions of the case have been answered,” the statement added.
The resolution at the center of the lawsuit, adopted by the union in 2021, calls for “the continued subjection of the Palestinian people to state-sponsored displacement, occupation, and use of lethal force by Israel,” and calls for potential support from the PSC at the branch level. was required to be discussed. For boycott, divestment, sanctions, or the BDS movement.
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Lacks said that while it is “true that Labor's views on Jews and that Zionism and Zionist Jews are anathema to us,” that is not the main focus of his case.
“Importantly, they are forcing us to be part of the bargaining unit, forcing us to allow them to negotiate our working conditions, and we are all seeing… They don't care that the rampant anti-Semitism that's happening right now is happening at colleges all over the country, but mine is the worst,” he said.
