A judge in Nashville ruled that Vanderbilt University does not have to turn over graduate students’ private information to a union that seeks to represent them, reports The College Fix.
The judge cited a student privacy law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. He ruled the university could object to a subpoena from Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United, that sought private information such as students’ cell phone numbers and email addresses.
The College Fix reports that
The Nov. 22 ruling is the latest part of a legal battle over the National Labor Relations Board’s authority and how it conflicts with federal education privacy laws….Three Vanderbilt University graduate students also opposed a subpoena issued on behalf of Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United that demanded personal information from its potential members…The three grad students have filed a legal motion to stop the subpoena with help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW). The proposed graduate student union is an affiliate of the United Auto Workers.
“The National Labor Relations Board…often, as part of unionization elections, requires employers to hand over to union officials employees’ private information,” says NRTW Vice President Patrick Semmens. He adds that the NLRB recently “expanded the information to include personal email and cell phones with no way to assure the information isn’t misused or shared with other third parties.” “This happens even if individual workers object and say they do not want their personal information given to union officials, who in many instances have used such information in nefarious and even illegal ways,” Semmens says.
An email from the Vanderbilt Graduate School to its students states that the NLRB subpoena “directs the university to provide the full name, work location, job shift, and job classification of allgraduate students as part of its response to a petition for union representation by Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United.”
The graduate students opposed the subpoena based on its violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which prevents the unauthorized disclosure of private information.
The National Right to Work Foundation said the NLRB’s subpoena is barred by “additional privacy protections” Congress added to federal privacy law.
Campus unions are often quite radical and use people’s membership dues for controversial political causes. In August, University of Chicago graduate students “sued a student union for forcing them to contribute to anti-Israel activities… The union makes graduate students who serve in certain teaching roles pay fees, even if they are not union members. The union supports certain initiatives and rhetoric that are perceived as anti-Semitic, including support for the controversial BDS movement,” reported Campus Reform in August:
Graduate students at the University of Chicago are suing the graduate student union at the school, stating they are forced to pay dues to the union and fund anti-Semitism, violating their First Amendment rights. Graduate Students United-United Electrical (GSU-UE), the union in question, was sued on July 22 together with its “parent union,” the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. The plaintiff, Graduate Students for Academic Freedom (GSAF), is a group “founded to promote academic freedom, and combat compelled speech and association across American campuses.”…GSU-UE forces graduate students to pay the union–whether or not they are members–if they want to keep their jobs as research assistants, teachings assistants, or “similar position[s].”…. GSU-UE and and its parent union, UE, both support anti-Semitism…the graduate student union “has not only echoed its parent union’s rhetoric, but has added to it.” “It took pains to publicly ‘reaffirm’ its commitment to BDS just one week after the October 7 terrorist attacks. And it has joined the ‘UChicago United for Palestine Coalition,’ which gained notoriety for its protest encampment and hostile takeover of the Institute of Politics. Through it, GSU-UE has joined calls to ‘honor the martyrs’; fight against campus ‘Zionists’; resist ‘pigs’ (i.e., police); ‘liberate’ Palestine from the ‘River to the Sea,’ and by ‘any means necessary’; and ‘bring the intifada home,’” the document details.
