Brown University

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 13, 2004

342 N.L.R.B. 483 (N.L.R.B. 2004)

BROWN UNIVERSITY
342 NLRB No. 42
483
Brown University and International Union, United
Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Im-
plement Workers of America, UAW AFL–CIO,
Petitioner. Case 1–RC–21368
July 13, 2004
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN BATTISTA AND MEMBERS LIEBMAN,
SCHAUMBER, WALSH, AND MEISBURG
On November 16, 2001, the Regional Director for Re-
gion 1 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in
which she applied New York University, 332 NLRB 1205
(2000) (NYU), to find that teaching assistants, research
assistants, and proctors are employees within the mean-
ing of Section 2(3) of the Act and constitute an appropri-
ate unit for collective bargaining. Thereafter, in accor-
dance with Section 102.67 of the Board’s Rules and
Regulations, Brown University (Brown) filed a timely
request for review, urging the Board, inter alia, to recon-
sider NYU. The Petitioner filed an opposition. On
March 22, 2002, the Board granted the request for re-
view. Brown and the Petitioner filed briefs on review.
Amicus curiae briefs also were filed.1
The case presents the issue of whether graduate stu-
dent assistants who are admitted into, not hired by, a uni-
versity, and for whom supervised teaching or research is
an integral component of their academic development,
must be treated as employees for purposes of collective
bargaining under Section 2(3) of the Act. The Board in
NYU concluded that graduate student assistants are em-
ployees under Section 2(3) of the Act and therefore are to
be extended the right to engage in collective bargaining.
That decision reversed more than 25 years of Board
precedent. 2 That precedent was never successfully chal-
lenged in court or in Congress. In our decision today, we
return to the Board’s pre-NYU precedent that graduate
student assistants are not statutory employees.
Until NYU, the Board’s principle was that graduate
student assistants are primarily students and not statutory
employees. See Leland Stanford, supra. The Board con-
cluded that graduate student assistants, who perform ser-

1 Amicus curiae briefs were filed by the following: Joint brief of the
American Council on Education and the National Association of Inde-
pendent Colleges and Universities; American Association of University
Professors; American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Or-
ganizations; Committee of Interns and Residents; Joint brief of Harvard
University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University,
George Washington University, Tufts University, University of Penn-
sylvania, University of Southern California, Washington University in
St. Louis, and Yale University; National Right to Work Legal Defense
Foundation; and Trustees of Boston University.
2 See, e.g., Leland Stanford Junior University, 214 NLRB 621
(1974).
vices at a university in connection with their studies,
have a predominately academic, rather than economic,
relationship with their school. Accordingly, the Board
held that they were not employees within the intendment
of the Act.
This longstanding approach towards graduate student
assistants changed abruptly with NYU. The Board de-
cided that graduate student assistants meet the test estab-
lishing a conventional master-servant relationship with a
university,3 and that they are statutory employees who
necessarily have “statutory rights to organize and bargain
with their employer.” 332 NLRB at 1209.4
After carefully considering the record herein, and the
briefs of the parties and amici, and for the reasons de-
tailed in this decision, we reconsider NYU and conclude
that the 25-year precedent was correct, and that NYU was
wrongly decided and should be overruled.5
I. THE PETITION AND THE REGIONAL
DIRECTOR’S FINDINGS
The Petitioner sought to represent a unit of approxi-
mately 450 graduate students employed as teaching as-
sistants (TAs),6 research assistants (RAs) in certain social
sciences and humanities departments,7 and proctors. The
Petitioner, relying on NYU, supra, contended to the Re-
gional Director that the petitioned-for TAs, RAs, and
proctors are employees within the meaning of Section
2(3) and that they constitute an appropriate unit for col-
lective bargaining.

3 “This relationship exists when a servant performs services for an-
other, under the other’s control or right of control, and in return for
payment.” NYU, 332 NLRB at 1206, relying on NLRB v. Town &
Country Electric , 516 U.S. 85, 90–91, 93–95 (1995).
4 NYU was preceded by Boston Medical Center, 330 NLRB 152
(1999), a case involving the employee status of medical school gradu-
ates serving as interns, residents, and house staff at a teaching hospital.
The Board in Boston Medical Center overruled St. Clare’s Hospital &
Health Center, 229 NLRB 1000 (1977), and Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center, 223 NLRB 251 (1976). Applying the master-servant test, the
Board found that these medical professionals were statutory employees
and constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining. In our
decision today, we express no opinion regarding the Board’s decision
in Boston Medical Center.
5 Brown’s request for oral argument is denied as the record and the
briefs adequately present the issues and positions of the parties and
amici.
6 Included among the TAs are senior TAs, assistants, supplemental
TAs, and teaching fellows. The union also seeks to represent the few
medical students who are seeking a Ph.D. and serving as a TA.
7 The Petitioner did not seek to represent other RAs, who are largely
in the life and physical sciences departments of the university. In its
Brief on Review, however, the Petitioner for the first time takes the
position that all RAs should be included in the unit. The Petitioner did
not file a request for review of the Regional Director’s finding, dis-
cussed infra, that the RAs in life and physical sciences should be ex-
cluded from the unit.

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 484
Brown contended to the Regional Director that the pe-
titioned-for individuals are not statutory employees be-
cause this case is factually distinguishable from NYU.
Brown asserted that, unlike NYU, where only a few de-
partments required students to serve as a TA or RA to
receive a degree, most university departments at Brown
require a student to serve as a TA or RA to obtain a de-
gree. Brown contended that these degree requirements
demonstrate that the petitioned-for students have only an
educational relationship and not an employment relation-
ship with Brown. Brown also argued that the TA, RA,
and proctor awards constitute financial aid to students,
emphasizing that students receive the same stipend, re-
gardless of whether they “work” for those funds as a TA,
RA, or proctor, or whether they receive funding for a
fellowship, which does not require any work. Finally,
Brown argued that even assuming the petitioned-for in-
dividuals are statutory employees, they are temporary
employees who do not have sufficient interest in their
ongoing employment to entitle them to collectively bar-
gain.8
The Regional Director, applying NYU, rejected
Brown’s arguments. She also concluded that the peti-
tioned-for unit was appropriate, and she directed an elec-
tion.
The election was conducted on December 6, 2001, and
the ballots were impounded pending the disposition of
this request for review.
II. FACTS AND CONTENTIONS OF THE PARTIES
A. Overview of Brown and the Graduate Assistants
Brown is a private university located in Providence,
Rhode Island. It was founded in 1764 and is one of the
oldest colleges in the United States.9 The mission of
Brown is to serve as a university in which the graduate
and undergraduate schools operate as a single integrated
facility. Brown has over 50 academic departments, ap-
proximately 37 of which offer graduate degrees.10
Brown employs approximately 550 regular faculty mem-
bers, and has an unspecified number of short-term fac-
ulty appointments. Although student enrollment levels
vary, over 1300 are graduate students, 5600 are under-
graduate students, and 300 are medical students in vari-

8 Further, Brown argued that there is no basis for treating groups of
RAs differently for the purposes of collective bargaining. Thus, al-
though Brown argues that none of the RAs are employees, it asserts
that all RAs should be treated the same; either all are employees or all
are not employees.
9 The University was originally named Rhode Island College. In
1804, the school was renamed Brown University to honor local mer-
chant, Nicholas Brown.
10 At least 32 departments bestow doctorates, while 5 award masters
degrees only.
ous degree programs. Most graduate students seek Ph.D.
degrees, with an estimated 1132 seeking doctorates and
178 seeking master’s degrees as of May 1, 2001.
Each semester many of these graduate students are
awarded a teaching assistantship, research assistantship,
or proctorship, and others receive a fellowship. At the
time of the hearing, approximately 375 of these graduate
students were TAs, 220 served as RAs, 60 were proc-
tors,11 and an additional number received fellowships.12
Although varying somewhat among the departments,
a teaching assistant generally is assigned to lead a small
section of a large lecture course taught by a professor.
Although functions of research assistants vary within
departments, these graduate students, as the title implies,
generally conduct research under a research grant re-
ceived by a faculty member. Proctors perform a variety
of duties for university departments or administrative
offices. Their duties depend on the individual needs of
the particular department or the university administrative
office in which they work and, thus, include a wide vari-
ety of tasks. Unlike TAs and RAs, proctors generally do
not perform teaching or research functions. Fellowships
do not require any classroom or departmental assign-
ments; those who receive dissertation fellowships are
required to be working on their dissertation.
B. Educational Relationship Between Brown and the
Graduate Student Assistants
Brown’s charter describes the school’s mission as
“educating and preparing students to discharge the office
of life with usefulness and reputation.” To educate and
prepare its students, Brown uses the university/college
model, which “furnishes the advantages of both a small
teaching college and a large research university,” accord-
ing to Brown’s Bulletin of the University for the years
2001–2003. The Bulletin describes the Ph.D. degree as
“primarily a research degree” and emphasizes that
“[t]eaching is also an important part of most graduate
programs.” The testimony of nearly 20 department
heads, and the contents of numerous departmental bro-
chures and other Brown brochures, all point to graduate
programs steeped in the education of graduate students
through research and teaching.

11 These figures are for a moment in time. During a given period, a
much higher number will have served in one of these positions at some
point during that period. Thus, as noted infra, the students in 21 of
approximately 32 departments require teaching as a condition of getting
a Ph.D. degree.
12 Approximately 50 graduate students receive a dean’s fellowship,
and a university fellowship is offered to 60 candidates. Each depart-
ment also has fellowships. The Employer asserts in its posthearing
brief that there are at least 300 fellowships, although the record is not
entirely clear as to the precise number overall.

BROWN UNIVERSITY 485
In their pursuit of a Ph.D. degree, graduate students
must complete coursework, be admitted to degree candi-
dacy (usually following a qualifying examination), and
complete a dissertation, all of which are subject to the
oversight of faculty and the degree requirements of the
department involved. In addition, most Ph.D. candidates
must teach in order to obtain their degree. Although
these TAs (as well as RAs and proctors) receive money
from the Employer, that is also true of fellows who do
not perform any services. Thus, the services are not re-
lated to the money received.
The faculty of each department is responsible for
awarding TAs, RAs, or proctorships to its students. To
receive an award, the individual usually must be enrolled
as a student in that department.
TAs generally lead small groups of students enrolled
in a large lecture class conducted by a faculty member in
the graduate student’s department. The duties and re-
sponsibilities vary with the department involved. In the
sciences, TAs typically demonstrate experiments and the
proper use of equipment, and answer questions. In the
humanities and social sciences, TAs lead discussions of
what was discussed in the lecture by the professor.13 All
the TAs’ duties are under the oversight of a faculty
member from the graduate department involved.
During semesters when these students do not act as
TAs, RAs, or proctors, they enroll in courses and work
on dissertations. Even during those semesters when they
are acting in one of these capacities, they nonetheless
participate in taking courses and writing dissertations.
The content of the courses that the TAs teach, and the
class size, time, length, and location are determined by
the faculty members, departmental needs, and Brown’s
administration. Although undergraduate enrollment pat-
terns play a role in the assignment of many TAs, faculty
often attempt to accommodate the specific educational
needs of graduate students whenever possible. In addi-
tion, TAs usually lead sections within their general aca-
demic area of interest. In the end, decisions over who,
what, where, and when to assist faculty members as a TA
generally are made by the faculty member and the re-
spective department involved, in conjunction with the
administration. These are precisely the individuals or
bodies that control the academic life of the TA.
Research assistantships are typically generated from
external grants from outside Brown, i.e., Federal agen-
cies, foundations, and corporate sponsors. A faculty

13 A few TAs in some departments do not lead sections or labs, but
teach a course, although under the supervision of a faculty member. In
addition, teaching fellows, who constitute less than 10 percent of all
TAs, teach courses independently. The vast majority of TAs, however,
typically lead sections or labs that are subsections of a large lecture.
member, referred to as the “principal investigator,” typi-
cally applies for the grant from the Government or pri-
vate source, and funds are included for one or more RAs.
The general process is for students to work with or “af-
filiate with” a faculty member, who then applies for
funds and awards the student the RA. The students sup-
ported by the grant will work on one of the topics de-
scribed in the grant. The faculty member who serves as a
principal investigator most typically also serves as the
advisor for that student’s dissertation. Although techni-
cally the principal investigator on the grant, the faculty
member’s role is more akin to teacher, mentor, or advisor
of students. Although the RAs in the social sciences and
humanities perform research that is more tangential to
their dissertation, the students still perform research
functions in conjunction with the faculty member who is
the principal investigator.
Proctors perform a variety of duties for university de-
partments or administrative offices. The Regional Direc-
tor cited a representative list of these duties, which in-
clude working in Brown’s museums or libraries, editing
journals or revising brochures, working in the office of
the dean, advising undergraduate students, and working
in various university offices. Although a few perform
research and at least one teaches a class in the Hispanic
studies department, they generally do not perform re-
search or teaching assistant duties.
C. Financial Support for Graduate Students
The vast majority of incoming and continuing graduate
students receive financial support. In the preceding aca-
demic year, 85 percent of continuing students and 75
percent of incoming students received some financial
support from Brown. Brown gives assurances to some
students that additional support will be available in the
future. Thus, at the discretion of each department and
based on the availability of funds, some incoming stu-
dents are told in their award letters that if they “maintain
satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D., you will continue
to receive some form of financial aid in your second
through fourth years of graduate study at Brown, most
probably as a teaching assistant or research assistant.”
Brown’s ultimate goal is to support all graduate students
for up to 5 years, typically with a fellowship in the first
and fifth years, and TA or RA positions in the interven-
ing years. As noted above, the financial support is not
dependent on whether the student performs services as a
TA, RA, or proctor.
Brown considers academic merit and financial need
when offering various forms of support, although support
is not necessarily issued to those with the greatest finan-

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 486
cial need.14 This support may include a fellowship, TA,
RA, or proctorship, which may include a stipend for liv-
ing expenses, payment of university health fee for on-
campus health services, and tuition “remission” (pay-
ment of tuition). Priority is given to continuing students
when awarding financial support.
The amount of funding for a fellowship, TA, RA, and
proctorship generally is the same. The basic stipend for
a fellowship, TA, RA, or proctorship is $12,800, al-
though some fellowships, RAs, and TAs are slightly
more.15 Tuition remission and health fee payments gen-
erally are the same for TAs, RAs, proctors, and fellows,
although the amount of tuition remission depends on the
number of courses taken by a student.16
Brown treats funds for TA, RAs, proctors, and fellow-
ships as financial aid and represents them as such in uni-
versitywide or departmental brochures. Graduate student
assistants receive a portion of their stipend award twice a
month, and the amount of stipend received is the same
regardless of the number of hours spent performing ser-
vices. The awards do not include any benefits, such as
vacation and sick leave, retirement, or health insurance.
D. Contentions of the Parties
1. Brown
In its Brief on Review, Brown argues that New York
University, 332 NLRB 1205 (2000), was wrongly de-
cided, contending that it reversed 25 years of precedent
“without paying adequate attention to the Board’s role in
making sensible policy decisions that effectuate the pur-
poses of the Act.” Brown contends that the Board “did
not adequately consider that the relationship between a
research university and its graduate students is not fun-
damentally an economic one but an educational one.”
Further, Brown contends that the support to students is
part of a financial aid program that pays graduate stu-

14 The University requires all students to submit a Free Application
for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Because proctorships usually are
paid with Federal work-study funds, those students must financially
qualify for this support. The University also provides Federal loans,
such as the Federal Direct Student Loan Program.
15 Students receiving the dean and dissertation fellowships receive
$14,500, while university fellowships receive $13,300. Some depart-
ments, particularly in the sciences, offer RA stipends from $13,200 to
$14,250. Some departments, mostly in sciences and social sciences,
use senior TAs who receive $13,300, while teaching fellows receive
from $14,300 to 14,800. Our colleagues say that the graduate assistant-
ships are “modest,” citing the $12,800 stipend paid by Brown as an
example. However, Brown may also provide these individuals with
tuition remission worth $26,000 per year, and in addition pays the
University’s health fee on their behalf.
16 As indicated above, TAs, RAs, and proctors participate in taking
courses and are permitted to take a maximum of three courses during
the semester that they serve. Fellows, however, are permitted to take a
maximum of five courses with four courses being most typical.
dents the same amount, regardless of work, and regard-
less of the value of those services if purchased on the
open market (i.e., hiring a fully-vetted Ph.D.). Brown
also emphasizes that “[c]ommon sense dictates that stu-
dents who teach and perform research as part of their
academic curriculum cannot properly be considered em-
ployees without entangling the . . . Act into the intrica-
cies of graduate education.” Brown also incorporates
arguments made in its request for review that, at a mini-
mum, NYU, supra, is distinguishable from this case be-
cause of the extent that teaching and research are re-
quired for a graduate degree, and because the graduate
assistants are temporary employees.
2. Petitioner
The Petitioner argues that the Regional Director cor-
rectly followed the Board’s decision in NYU, and that
NYU must be upheld. The Petitioner contends that the
petitioned-for employees clearly meet the statutory defi-
nition of “employee” because they meet the common law
test. The Petitioner disputes Brown’s contention that TA
and RA stipends, like fellowship stipends, are “financial
aid.” The Petitioner argues that Brown’s contention that
TAs or RAs lose their status as employees because the
TAs and RAs are academically required to work is based
on the false notion that there is no way to distinguish
between a graduate student’s academic requirements and
the “work appointments” of the TAs or RAs. Further,
even assuming that these individuals usually are satisfy-
ing an academic requirement, this is not determinative of
employee status.
With regard to the RAs in the life and physical sci-
ences that the Regional Director excluded, the Petitioner
now asserts that these individuals should be included in
the unit because they provide a service to Brown and are
compensated for such service in a manner consistent with
a finding that they are employees within the meaning of
the Act.
Finally, the Petitioner contends that the petitioned-for
individuals are not temporary employees.
III. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
A. Pre-NYU Board Decisions
In Adelphi University, 195 NLRB 639 (1972), the
Board held that graduate student assistants are primarily
students and should be excluded from a unit of regular
faculty. In Leland Stanford, 214 NLRB 621 (1974), the
Board went further. It held that graduate student assis-
tants “are not employees within the meaning of Section
2(3) of the Act.” The common thread in both opinions is
that these individuals are students, not employees. The
Board found that the research assistants were not statu-
tory employees because, like the graduate students in

BROWN UNIVERSITY 487
Adelphi, supra, they were “primarily students.” In sup-
port of this conclusion, the Board cited to the following:
(1) the research assistants were graduate students en-
rolled in the Stanford physics department as Ph.D. candi-
dates; (2) they were required to perform research to ob-
tain their degree; (3) they received academic credit for
their research work; and (4) while they received a stipend
from Stanford, the amount was not dependent on the na-
ture or intrinsic value of the services performed or the
skill or function of the recipient, but instead was deter-
mined by the goal of providing the graduate students
with financial support. For over 25 years, the Board ad-
hered to the Leland Stanford principle.
In each of these Board decisions, the Board’s view of
graduate students enrolled at a college or university re-
mained essentially the same. In Adelphi University, su-
pra, the graduate student assistants were graduate stu-
dents working towards their advanced academic degrees,
and the Board noted that “their employment depends
entirely on their status as such.” 195 NLRB at 640. Fur-
ther, the Board emphasized that graduate student assis-
tants “are guided, instructed, assisted, and corrected in
the performance of their assistantship duties by the regu-
lar faculty members to whom they are assigned.” Id.
The Board concluded that graduate student assistants
were primarily students and contrasted them with re-
search associates in C. W. Post Center of Long Island
University, 189 NLRB 904 (1971), because the research
associates “[were] not simultaneously a student but al-
ready had . . . [a] doctoral degree and, under the Center’s
statutes, [were] eligible for tenure.” 195 NLRB at 640
fn. 8. As noted above, the rationale was similar in
Leland Stanford, supra, in which the Board likewise con-
trasted the research assistants there to research associ-
ates, again emphasizing that research associates are not
simultaneously students and concluding that “these re-
search assistants are like the graduate teaching and re-
search assistants who we found were primarily students
in Adelphi University.” 214 NLRB at 623.
In St. Clare’s Hospital, 229 NLRB 1000 (1977), and
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 223 NLRB 251 (1976),
the Board reaffirmed its treatment of students “who per-
form services at their educational institutions which are
directly related to their educational program” and stated
that the Board “has universally excluded students from
units which include nonstudent employees, and in addi-
tion has denied them the right to be represented sepa-
rately.” St. Clare’s Hospital, 229 NLRB at 1002. The
Board emphasized the rationale that they are “serving
primarily as students and not primarily as employees . . .
[and] the mutual interests of the students and the educa-
tional institution in the services being rendered are pre-
dominately academic rather than economic in nature.”
Id. Although the Board later overruled St. Clare’s Hos-
pital and Cedars-Sinai in Boston Medical Center, 330
NLRB 152 (1999), and asserted jurisdiction over the
individuals there, those individuals were interns, resi-
dents, and fellows who had already completed and re-
ceived their academic degrees. The Board in Boston
Medical did not address the status of graduate assistants
who have not received their academic degrees. In the
instant case, the graduate assistants are seeking their aca-
demic degrees and, thus, are clearly students. We need
not decide whether Boston Medical (where the opposite
is true) was correctly decided.
B. Return to the Pre-NYU Status of
Graduate Student Assistants
The Supreme Court has recognized that principles de-
veloped for use in the industrial setting cannot be “im-
posed blindly on the academic world.” NLRB v. Yeshiva
University, 444 U.S. 672, 680–681 (1980), citing Syra-
cuse University, 204 NLRB 641, 643 (1973). While
graduate programs may differ somewhat in their details,
the concerns raised in NYU, supra, and here forcefully
illustrate the problem of attempting to force the student-
university relationship into the traditional employer-
employee framework. After carefully analyzing these
issues, we have come to the conclusion that the Board’s
25-year pre-NYU principle of regarding graduate students
as nonemployees was sound and well reasoned. It is
clear to us that graduate student assistants, including
those at Brown, are primarily students and have a primar-
ily educational, not economic, relationship with their
university. Accordingly, we overrule NYU and return to
the pre-NYU Board precedent.
Leland Stanford, supra, was wholly consistent with the
overall purpose and aim of the Act. In Section 1 of the
Act, Congress found that the strikes, industrial strife and
unrest that preceded the Act were caused by the “inequal-
ity of bargaining power between employees who do not
possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of
contract, and employers who are organized in the corpo-
rate or other forms of ownership . . . .”17 To remove the
burden on interstate commerce caused by this industrial
unrest, Congress extended to and protected the right of
employees, if they so choose, to organize and bargain
collectively with their employer, encouraging the
“friendly adjustment of industrial disputes arising out of
differences as to wages, hours or other conditions . . . .”
Id.18 The Act was premised on the view that there is a

17 Sec. 1, 29 U.S.C. § 151.
18 1 Leg. Hist. 318 (NLRA 1935). See also American Ship Building
Co. v. NLRB, 380 U.S. 300, 316 (1965) (a purpose of the Act is “to

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 488
fundamental conflict between the interests of the em-
ployers and employees engaged in collective-bargaining
under its auspices and that “‘[t]he parties . . . proceed
from contrary and to an extent antagonistic viewpoints
and concepts of self-interest’”[:]19

[T]he damage caused to the nation’s commerce by the
inequality of bargaining power between employees and
employers was one of the central problems addressed
by the Act. A central policy of the Act is that the pro-
tection of the right of employees to organize and bar-
gain collectively restores equality of bargaining power
between employers and employees and safeguards
commerce from the harm caused by labor disputes. The
vision of a fundamentally economic relationship be-
tween employers and employees is inescapable.20

The Board and the courts have looked to these Con-
gressional policies for guidance in determining the outer
limits of statutory employee status. Thus, the Supreme
Court held, in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co.,21 that mana-
gerial employees, while not excluded from the definition
of an employee in Section 2(3), nevertheless are not
statutory employees. As the Court explained:

[T]he Wagner Act was designed to protect “laborers”
and “workers,” not vice-presidents and others clearly
within the managerial hierarchy. Extension of the Act
to cover true “managerial employees” would indeed be
revolutionary, for it would eviscerate the traditional dis-
tinction between labor and management. If Congress
intended a result so drastic, it is not unreasonable to ex-
pect that it would have said so expressly.22

This interpretation of Section 2(3) followed the funda-
mental rule that “a reviewing court should not confine
itself to examining a particular statutory provision in
isolation.”23 We follow that principle here. We look to

redress the perceived imbalance of economic power between labor and
management.”); 1 Leg. His. 15 (NLRA 1935) (remarks of Sen. Wagner,
78 Cong.Rec. 3443 (Mar. 1, 1934).
19 NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U.S. 477, 488 (1960).
20 WBAI Pacifica Foundation, 328 NLRB 1273, 1275 (1999) (em-
phasis added).
21 416 U.S. 267 (1974).
22 Id. at 284.
23 FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 132–
133 (2000) (“The meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases
may only become evident when placed in context. It is a fundamental
canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read
in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory
scheme. A court must therefore interpret the statute as a symmetrical
and coherent regulatory scheme.”) (Citations and internal quotations
omitted.) See also Sutherland, Statutory Construction (5th ed. 1994) §
46.05: “A statute is passed as a whole and not in parts or sections and is
animated by one general purpose and intent. Consequently, each part or
the underlying fundamental premise of the Act, viz. the
Act is designed to cover economic relationships. The
Board’s longstanding rule that it will not assert jurisdic-
tion over relationships that are “primarily educational “ is
consistent with these principles.
We emphasize the simple, undisputed fact that all the
petitioned-for individuals are students and must first be
enrolled at Brown to be awarded a TA, RA, or proctor-
ship. Even students who have finished their coursework
and are writing their dissertation must be enrolled to re-
ceive these awards. Further, students serving as graduate
student assistants spend only a limited number of hours
performing their duties, and it is beyond dispute that their
principal time commitment at Brown is focused on ob-
taining a degree and, thus, being a student. Also, as
shown below, their service as a graduate student assistant
is part and parcel of the core elements of the Ph.D. de-
gree. Because they are first and foremost students, and
their status as a graduate student assistant is contingent
on their continued enrollment as students, we find that
that they are primarily students.
We also emphasize that the money received by the
TAs, RAs, and proctors is the same as that received by
fellows. Thus, the money is not “consideration for
work.” It is financial aid to a student.
The evidence demonstrates that the relationship be-
tween Brown’s graduate student assistants and Brown is
primarily educational. As indicated, the first prerequisite
to becoming a graduate student assistant is being a stu-
dent. Being a student, of course, is synonymous with
learning, education, and academic pursuits. At Brown,
most graduate students are pursuing a Ph.D. which, as
described by the Brown’s University Bulletin, is primar-
ily a research degree with teaching being an important
component of most graduate programs. The educational
core of the degree, research, and teaching, reflects the
essence of what Brown offers to students: “the advantage
of a small teaching college and large research univer-
sity.” At least 21 of the 32 departments that offer Ph.D.
degrees require teaching as a condition of getting that
degree. Sixty-nine percent of all graduate students are
enrolled in these departments. Thus, for a substantial
majority of graduate students, teaching is so integral to
their education that they will not get the degree until they
satisfy that requirement.24 Graduate student assistant

section should be construed in connection with every other part or
section so as to produce a harmonious whole. Thus, it is not proper to
confine interpretation to the one section to be construed.”
24 This fact is relevant to our analysis, but it is not necessarily criti-
cal. That is, if the fact were to the contrary, we would not necessarily
find employee status. Indeed, the fact was contra in NYU and employee
status was found, but we have overruled that case.

BROWN UNIVERSITY 489
positions are, therefore, directly related to the core ele-
ments of the Ph.D. degree and the educational reasons
that students attend Brown. The relationship between
being a graduate student assistant and the pursuit of the
Ph.D. is inextricably linked, and thus, that relationship is
clearly educational.
We recognize that a given graduate student may be a
teacher, researcher, or proctor for only a portion of his or
her tenure as a student. However, as described above,
that task is an integral part of being a graduate student,
and cannot be divorced from the other functions of being
a graduate student.
Because the role of teaching assistant and research as-
sistant is integral to the education of the graduate student,
Brown’s faculty oversees graduate student assistants in
their role as a research or teaching assistant. Although
the duties and responsibilities of graduate student assis-
tants vary among departments and faculty, most perform
under the direction and control of faculty members from
their particular department. TAs generally do not teach
independently, and even teaching fellows who have
some greater responsibilities follow faculty-established
courses. RAs performing research do so under grants
applied for by faculty members, who often serve as the
RA’s dissertation adviser. In addition, these faculty
members are often the same faculty that teach or advise
the graduate assistant student in their coursework or dis-
sertation preparation.
Besides the purely academic dimension to this rela-
tionship is the financial support provided to graduate
student assistants because they are students. Attendance
at Brown is quite expensive. Brown recognizes the need
for financial support to meet the costs of a graduate edu-
cation. This assistance, however, is provided only to
students and only for the period during which they are
enrolled as students. Further, the vast majority of stu-
dents receive funding. Thus, in the last academic year,
85 percent of continuing students and 75 percent of in-
coming students received assistance from Brown. In
addition, as noted above, the amounts received by gradu-
ate student assistants generally are the same or similar to
the amounts received by students who receive funds for a
fellowship, which do not require any assistance in teach-
ing and research. Moreover, a significant segment of the
funds received by both graduate student assistants and
fellows is for full tuition. Further, the funds for students
largely come from Brown’s financial aid budget rather
than its instructional budget.
Thus, in light of the status of graduate student assis-
tants as students, the role of graduate student assistant-
ships in graduate education, the graduate student assis-
tants’ relationship with the faculty, and the financial sup-
port they receive to attend Brown, we conclude that the
overall relationship between the graduate student assis-
tants and Brown is primarily an educational one, rather
than an economic one.
Over 25 years ago, the Board in St. Clare’s Hospital,
supra, clearly and cogently explained the rationale for
declining to extend collective-bargaining rights to stu-
dents who perform services at their educational institu-
tions, that are directly related to their educational pro-
gram, i.e.,

The rationale . . . is a relatively simple and straightfor-
ward one. Since the individuals are rendering services
which are directly related to—and indeed constitute an
integral part of—their educational program, they are
serving primarily as students and not primarily as em-
ployees. In our view this is a very fundamental distinc-
tion for it means that the mutual interests of the stu-
dents and the educational institution in the services be-
ing rendered are predominantly academic rather than
economic in nature. Such interests are completely for-
eign to the normal employment relationship and, in our
judgment, are not readily adaptable to the collective-
bargaining process. It is for this reason that the Board
has determined that the national labor policy does not
require—and in fact precludes—the extension of col-
lective-bargaining rights and obligations to situations
such as the one now before us.

229 NLRB at 1002 (footnote omitted).
The Board explained, “[i]t is important to recognize
that the student-teacher relationship is not at all analo-
gous to the employer-employee relationship.” Thus, the
student-teacher relationship is based on the “mutual in-
terest in the advancement of the student’s education,”
while the employer-employee relationship is “largely
predicated on the often conflicting interests” over eco-
nomic issues. Because the collective-bargaining process
is fundamentally an economic process, the Board con-
cluded that subjecting educational decisions to such a
process would be of “dubious value” because educational
concerns are largely irrelevant to wages, hours, and
working conditions. In short, the Board determined that
collective bargaining is not particularly well suited to
educational decisionmaking and that any change in em-
phasis from quality education to economic concerns will
“prove detrimental to both labor and educational poli-
cies.”
The Board noted that “the educational process—
particularly at the graduate and professional levels—is an
intensely personal one.” The Board emphasized that the
process is personal, not only for the students, but also for
faculty, who must educate students with a wide variety of

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 490
backgrounds and abilities. In contrast to these individual
relationships, collective bargaining is predicated on the
collective or group treatment of represented individuals.
The Board observed that in many respects, collective
treatment is “the very antithesis of personal individual-
ized education.”
The Board also emphasized that collective bargaining
is designed to promote equality of bargaining power,
“another concept that is largely foreign to higher educa-
tion.” The Board noted that while teachers and students
have a mutual interest in the advancement of the stu-
dent’s education, in an employment relationship such
mutuality of goals “rarely exists.”
Finally, the Board concluded that collective bargaining
would unduly infringe upon traditional academic free-
doms. The list of freedoms detailed in St. Clare’s Hospi-
tal, 229 NLRB at 1003, includes not only the right to
speak freely in the classroom, but many “fundamental
matters” involving traditional academic decisions, in-
cluding course length and content, standards for ad-
vancement and graduation, administration of exams, and
many other administrative and educational concerns.
The Board opined that once academic freedoms become
bargainable, “Board involvement in matters of strictly
academic concern is only a petition or an unfair labor
practice charge away.”25
The concerns expressed by the Board in St. Clare’s
Hospital 25 years ago are just as relevant today at
Brown. Imposing collective bargaining would have a
deleterious impact on overall educational decisions by
the Brown faculty and administration. These decisions
would include broad academic issues involving class
size, time, length, and location, as well as issues over
graduate assistants’ duties, hours, and stipends. In addi-
tion, collective bargaining would intrude upon decisions
over who, what, and where to teach or research—the
principal prerogatives of an educational institution like
Brown. Although these issues give the appearance of
being terms and conditions of employment, all involve
educational concerns and decisions, which are based on
different, and often individualized considerations.26

25 In citing St. Clare’s, we do not necessarily register our agreement
with all aspects of that case. That is, we do not hold that residents and
interns are not employees for purposes of collective bargaining. Nor do
we hold that the Act “precludes” residents and interns from employee
status under Sec. 2(3). We simply say that, for many of the same pol-
icy considerations that underlie St. Clare’s, we have chosen not to treat
graduate assistants as employees for purposes of collective bargaining.
26 Academic freedom includes the right of a university “to determine
for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught,
how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” Sweezy v.
State of New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 263 (1957) (Frankfurter, J,
concurring). As our dissenting colleagues note, the Supreme Court
found that these freedoms were not infringed by the EEOC’s efforts to
Based on all of the above-statutory and policy consid-
erations, we concluded that the graduate student assis-
tants are not employees within the meaning of Section
2(3) of the Act. Accordingly, we decline to extend col-
lective bargaining rights to them, and we dismiss the
petition.27
Our dissenting colleagues question our analysis of pre-
NYU precedent. More specifically, they assert that the
holding of Leland Stanford, 214 NLRB 621 (1974), is
confined to research assistants and that research assis-
tants are unlike graduate teaching assistants. The lan-
guage of the Board in that case is directly contrary to this
assertion. The Board said:

In sum, we believe these research assistants are like the
graduate teaching and research assistants who we

subpoena tenure-related documents in University of Pennsylvania v.
EEOC, 493 U.S. 182 (1990). In reaching this conclusion, the Court
stressed that the application of Title VII to tenure decisions would not
usurp the university’s authority to determine employment criteria for
professors except by precluding the use of those proscribed by Title
VII. The imposition of collective bargaining on the relationship be-
tween a university and its graduate student assistants, in contrast, would
limit the university’s freedom to determine a wider range of matters.
Because graduate student assistants are students, those limitations in-
trude on core academic freedoms in a manner simply not present in
cases involving faculty employees.
27 Member Schaumber agrees with his colleagues that graduate stu-
dent assistants are not statutory employees for the reasons stated above.
He finds further support for this conclusion in the fact that graduate
student assistants fit poorly within the common law definition of “em-
ployee,” “which the Supreme Court has held is relevant to the question
of whether an individual is an “employee” under the Act, although not
controlling. NLRB v. Town & Country Electric, 516 U.S. 85, 94 (1995)
(contrasting interpretation of term “employee” under other Federal
laws, applying common law standards, with the “‘considerable defer-
ence’” given to the Board’s construction of that term when administer-
ing the Act). Under the common law, an employee is a person who
performs services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the
other’s control or right of control, and in return for payment. Id. Here,
graduate student assistants are not “hired” to serve as graduate teaching
or research assistants. They are admitted to a graduate program that
includes a requirement for service as a graduate student assistant. The
teaching and research are not performed “for” the university, as such,
but rather as an integral part of the student’s educational course of
study. The financial arrangements for graduate student stipends further
confirm the fundamentally educational nature of service as a TA or RA,
as the stipends are based upon status—enrollment in a graduate pro-
gram. They do not depend on the nature or value of the services pro-
vided, and, thus, are not a quid pro quo for services rendered. In dis-
agreeing with this analysis, Member Schaumber believes that his dis-
senting colleagues focus too narrowly on the mechanics of the work
performed by graduate student assistants without considering it in con-
text with the controlling academic relationship of which it is an integral
part. This parallels the dissent’s application of the definition for “em-
ployee” set forth in Sec. 2(3) of the Act. Member Schaumber believes
that the dissenters read the definition in isolation while the breadth of
the term’s application—its intended contours—can only be determined
accurately by reading the definition in the context of the Act, see, e.g.,
Sec. 1 in which it appears.

BROWN UNIVERSITY 491
found were primarily students in Adelphi University,
195 NLRB 639, 640 (1972). We find, therefore, that
the research assistants in the physics department are
primarily students, and we conclude they are not em-
ployees within the meaning of Section 2(2) of the Act.

214 NLRB at 623 (emphasis added). Our colleagues’ asser-
tions, therefore, turn a blind eye to the Board’s longstanding
policy, discussed above, of declining to extend collective-
bargaining rights to graduate students and holding that
graduate students are not employees under Section 2(3) of
the Act. See Adelphi University, supra; Leland Stanford
University, supra; and St. Clare’s, supra.28
The broad applicability of this policy to graduate stu-
dent assistants is clear from St. Clare’s, in which the
Board carefully delineated several categories of Board
cases involving students, including those students who
perform services at an educational institution where
those services are directly related to the university’s edu-
cational programs. Discussing this category of cases,
and citing Leland Stanford and Adelphi University, the
Board stated, “[i]n such cases, the Board has universally
excluded students from units which include nonstudent
employees, and in addition has denied them the right to
be represented separately.” Id. at 1002.29 Until NYU,
this had been the Board’s unbroken policy towards the
issue of collective-bargaining rights for graduate stu-
dents. Although the Board may not have been presented
the precise facts of NYU in earlier cases, the dissent
chooses either to ignore or simply to disregard what had
been Board law regarding this category of students for
over 25 years. This Board law is also consistent with
nearly one-half century of Board decisions holding that
the disabled who are in primarily rehabilitative rather
than an economic or industrial work relationships are not
statutory employees and that it would not effectuate the
policies of the Act to subject the rehabilitative program

28 Our colleagues say that, under St. Clare’s, house staff were not
employees for bargaining purposes but they could be employees for
other statutory purposes. Our colleagues complain that, in the instant
case, we are holding that graduate student assistants are not employees
for any statutory purposes. In our view, that result flows from our
interpretation of Sec. 2(3). Of course, St. Clare’s is not now the law,
and we decline to consider its holding here.
29 Although the dissent cites language from Cedars-Sinai, supra, to
the effect that the Board has included students in some bargaining units
and in a few instances, authorized elections in units composed solely of
students, the Board clarified this general assertion in St. Clare’s by
making clear that this does not include the category of students who
perform services at their university related to their educational pro-
grams.
into which they have been admitted to collective bargain-
ing.30
Our colleagues argue that graduate student assistants
are employees at common law. Even assuming arguendo
that this is so, it does not follow that they are employees
within the meaning of the Act. The issue of employee
status under the Act turns on whether Congress intended
to cover the individual in question. The issue is not to be
decided purely on the basis of older common-law con-
cepts. For example, a managerial employee may perform
services for, and be under the control of, an employer.
Indeed, the Supreme Court used the term “managerial
employee” in Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267 (1974).
And yet, the Court held that these persons were not statu-
tory employees.
Similarly, our colleagues say that we never address the
language of Section 2(3). In fact, we do. The difference
is that our colleagues stop their analysis with the recita-
tion of the statutory words “the term “employee” shall
include any employee.” We go further than this tautol-
ogy. We examine the underlying purposes of the Act.
Our colleagues rely on NLRB v. Town & Country Elec-
tric, 516 U.S. 85 (1995), and Sure-Tan v. NLRB, 467
U.S. 883 (1984), to support their contention that the ab-
sence of an express exclusion in Section 2(3) for gradu-
ate student assistants mandates a finding that the assis-
tants are statutory employees. As the foregoing discus-
sion makes clear, that is simply not so. Further, neither
of these cases supports the dissent’s position. In both
Town & Country and Sure-Tan, the individuals found to
be employees worked in fundamentally economic rela-
tionships. Moreover, and consistent with our approach,
the Court in both cases examined the underlying pur-
poses of the Act in determining whether paid union or-
ganizers and illegal aliens, respectively, were statutory
employees. Town & Country, supra, 516 U.S. at 91;
Sure-Tan, supra, 467 U.S. at 891–892. We have exam-
ined and rely upon those same statutory purposes in de-
termining that Brown’s graduate student assistants are
not employees within the meaning of the Act.
Contrary to the dissent, our decision today is also con-
sistent with the Board’s recent decision in Alexandria
Clinic, 339 NLRB 1262 (2003), which considered
whether a union satisfied Section 8(g)’s 10-day strike
notice requirement when it issued a 10-day notice, but
deliberately delayed the start of the strike for 4 hours
after the time specified in the notice. Section 8(g) con-
tains detailed requirements for strike notices at healthcare
facilities, and the Board properly relied on those explicit

30 Sheltered Workshops of San Diego, 126 NLRB 961(1960), Good-
will of Tidewater, 304 NLRB 767 (1991); and Goodwill of Denver, 304
NLRB 764 (1991).

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 492
statutory provisions in concluding that the notice in Al-
exandria Clinic, supra, was deficient. Section 2(3), by
contrast, contains no detailed provisions for determining
statutory employee status. That issue, therefore, must be
examined in the context of the Act’s overall purpose.
The dissent’s further contention that we “fail to come
to grips” with the statutory principles of Section 2(3) is
nothing more than a disagreement with our interpretation
and application of the statute. In reality, the NYU deci-
sion on which our colleagues rely was contrary to his-
toric Board precedent. It was also contrary to Supreme
Court and Circuit Court precedent, in that it read Section
2(3) out of the context in which it appears. We are un-
prepared to do so. As discussed above, the absence of
“students” from the enumerated exclusions of Section
2(3) is not the end of the statutory inquiry. Rather, al-
though Section 2(3) contains explicit exceptions for
groups that must be excluded from the statutory defini-
tion of “employee,” other groups also have been held to
be excluded.
Moreover, even if graduate student assistants are statu-
tory employees, a proposition with which we disagree, it
simply does not effectuate the national labor policy to
accord them collective bargaining rights, because they
are primarily students. In this regard, the Board has the
discretion to determine whether it would effectuate na-
tional labor policy to extend collective–bargaining rights
to such a category of employees. Indeed, the Board has
previously exercised that discretion with respect to medi-
cal residents and interns. See St. Clare’s Hospital, supra.
Thus, assuming arguendo that the petitioned-for indi-
viduals are employees under Section 2(3), the Board is
not compelled to include them in a bargaining unit if the
Board determines it would not effectuate the purposes
and policies of the Act to do so.
We also reject the dissent’s contention that our policy
is unsound because we “minimize the economic relation-
ship between graduate student assistants and their uni-
versities.” Contrary to the dissent, the “academic reality”
for graduate student assistants has not changed, in rele-
vant respects, since our decisions over 25 years ago.
See, e.g., the description of graduate assistants in Adelphi
University, 195 NLRB at 640. As the Board explained in
St. Clare’s, the conclusion that these graduate student
assistants are primarily students “connotes nothing more
than the simple fact that when an individual is providing
services at the educational institution itself as part and
parcel of his or her educational development the individ-
ual’s interest in rendering such services is more academic
than economic.” 229 NLRB at 1003. That is the essence
of the relationship between a university and graduate
student assistants, and why we decline to accord collec-
tive–bargaining rights to them.
Although the dissent theorizes how the changing fi-
nancial and corporate structure of universities may have
given rise to graduate student organizing, these theories
do not contradict the following facts demonstrating that
the relationship between Brown and its graduate student
assistants is primarily academic: (1) the petitioned-for
individuals are students; (2) working as a TA, RA, or
proctor, and receipt of a stipend and tuition remission,
depends on continued enrollment as a student; (3) the
principal time commitment at Brown is focused on ob-
taining a degree, and, thus, being a student; and (4) serv-
ing as a TA, RA, or proctor, is part and parcel of the core
elements of the Ph.D. degree, which are teaching and
research. Although the structure of universities, like
other institutions, may have changed, these facts illus-
trate that the basic relationship between graduate stu-
dents and their university has not.
The dissent gives a few examples of collective-
bargaining agreements in which there is assertedly no
intrusion into the educational process. However, inas-
much as graduate student assistants are not statutory em-
ployees that is the end of the inquiry. Nevertheless, we
will respond to our dissenting colleagues. Even if some
unions have chosen not to intrude into academic preroga-
tives, that does not mean that other unions would be
similarly abstemious. The certification sought by the
Petitioner here has no limitations. As discussed above,
the broad power to bargain over all Section 8(d) subjects
would, in the case of graduate student assistants, carry
with it the power to intrude into areas that are at the heart
of the educational process. In contrast to the broad
power to bargain under Section 8(d) of the Act, all states
have the authority to limit bargaining subjects for public
academic employees, and at least some have exercised
that authority.31

31 See, e.g., Cal. Gov’t Code Sec. 3562(q) (West 2004) (excluding,
from collective bargaining, admission requirements for students, condi-
tions for awarding degrees, and content and supervision of courses,
curricula, and research programs), applied in Regents of the University
of California, 23 PERC P 30025 (1998); see also Central State Univer-
sity v. American Assn. of University Professors, 526 U.S. 124 (1999)
(per curiam) (Ohio statute exempting university professors’ instruc-
tional workload standards from collective bargaining does not violate
equal protection); University Education Association v. Regents of the
University of Minnesota, 353 N.W. 2d 534 (Minn. 1984) (criteria to
determine promotion and tenure, review of faculty evaluations, and
academic calendar, are matters of inherent management policy, which
are not negotiable under labor relations statute); and Regents of the
University of Michigan v. Michigan Employment Relations Commis-
sion, 389 Mich. 96, 204 N.W. 2d 218 (1973) (scope of bargaining lim-
ited if subject matter falls clearly within the educational sphere).

BROWN UNIVERSITY 493
The dissent also faults us for acting in the absence of
“empirical evidence,” and for allegedly engaging in poli-
cymaking reserved to Congress. Once again, inasmuch
as graduate student assistants are not statutory employ-
ees, that is the end of our inquiry. It is our dissenting
colleagues who are intruding on the domain of the Con-
gress. In addition, as to the former point, 25 years of
untroubled experience under pre-NYU standards seem to
us a far more sound empirical basis for action than that
offered by the studies our colleagues cite. And, as to the
latter point, we note that Congress voiced no disapproval
of the Board’s 25-year rule that graduate students are not
employees. See American Totalisator, 243 NLRB 314
(1979), affd. 708 F.2d 46 (2d. Cir. 1983), cert. denied
464 U.S. 914 (1983) (“Congress is well aware of the
Board’s historic stance of declining to assert jurisdiction
over horseracing and dogracing, . . . [a]bsent an indica-
tion from Congress that the Board’s refusal to assert ju-
risdiction is contrary to congressional mandate, we are
not persuaded that we should exercise our discretion to
reverse our prior holdings on this issue.”).
Finally, our colleagues suggest that we have concluded
that “there [is] no room in the ivory tower for a sweat-
shop.” Although the phrase is a catchy one, it does noth-
ing to further the analysis of this case. Our decision does
not turn on whether our nation’s universities are ivory
towers or sweatshops (although we do not believe that
either has been shown). Rather, our decision turns on
our fundamental belief that the imposition of collective
bargaining on graduate students would improperly in-
trude into the educational process and would be inconsis-
tent with the purposes and policies of the Act.
For the reasons we have outlined in this opinion, there
is a significant risk, and indeed a strong likelihood, that
the collective-bargaining process will be detrimental to
the educational process. Although the dissent dismisses
our concerns about collective bargaining and academic
freedom at private universities as pure speculation, their
confidence in the process in turn relies on speculation
about the risks of imposing collective bargaining on the
student-university relationship. We decline to take these
risks with our nation’s excellent private educational sys-
tem. Although under a variety of state laws, some states
permit collective bargaining at public universities, we
choose to interpret and apply a single Federal law differ-
ently to the large numbers of private universities under
our jurisdiction. Consistent with longstanding Board
precedent, and for the reasons set forth in this decision,
we declare the Federal law to be that graduate student
assistants are not employees within the meaning of Sec-
tion 2(3) of the Act.
ORDER
The Regional Director’s Decision and Direction of
Election is reversed, and the petition is dismissed.

MEMBERS LIEBMAN AND WALSH, dissenting.
Collective bargaining by graduate student employees
is increasingly a fact of American university life.1
Graduate student unions have been recognized at cam-
puses from coast to coast, from the State University of
New York to the University of California. Overruling a
recent, unanimous precedent, the majority now declares
that graduate student employees at private universities
are not employees protected by the National Labor Rela-
tions Act and have no right to form unions. The major-
ity’s reasons, at bottom, amount to the claim that gradu-
ate-student collective bargaining is simply incompatible
with the nature and mission of the university. This reve-
lation will surely come as a surprise on many cam-
puses—not least at New York University, a first-rate
institution where graduate students now work under a
collective-bargaining agreement reached in the wake of
the decision that is overruled here.2
Today’s decision is woefully out of touch with con-
temporary academic reality. Based on an image of the
university that was already outdated when the decisions
the majority looks back to, Leland Stanford3 and St.
Clare’s Hospital,4 were issued in the 1970’s, it shows a
troubling lack of interest in empirical evidence. Even
worse, perhaps, is the majority’s approach to applying
the Act. It disregards the plain language of the statute—
which defines “employees” so broadly that graduate stu-
dents who perform services for, and under the control of,
their universities are easily covered—to make a policy
decision that rightly belongs to Congress. The reasons
offered by the majority for its decision do not stand up to

1 See Neal H. Hutchens & Melissa B. Hutchens, Catching the Union
Bug: Graduate Student Employees and Unionization, 39 GONZAGA L.
REV. 105, 106–107 (2004) (surveying history and status of graduate
student unions); Daniel J. Julius & Patricia J. Gumport, Graduate Stu-
dent Unionization: Catalysts and Consequences, 26 REVIEW OF
HIGHER EDUCATION 187, 191–196 (2002) (same); Grant M. Hayden,
“The University Works Because We Do”: Collective Bargaining Rights
for Graduate Assistants, 69 FORDHAM L. REV. 1233, 1236–1243
(2001) (same); Douglas Sorrelle Streitz & Jennifer Allyson Hunkler,
Teaching or Learning: Are Teaching Assistants Students or Employees,
24 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY LAW 349, 358–370 (1997)
(same). By one recent count, 23 American universities have recognized
graduate student unions or faculty unions including graduate students,
beginning in 1969 with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See
Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions, Frequently Asked Questions
about Graduate Employee Unions at http://www.cgeu.org/FAQ ba-
sics.html.
2 New York University, 332 NLRB 1205 (2000) (NYU).
3 Leland Stanford Junior University, 214 NLRB 621 (1974).
4 St. Clare’s Hospital & Health Center, 229 NLRB 1000 (1977).

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 494
scrutiny. But even if they did, it would not be for the
Board to act upon them. The result of the Board’s ruling
is harsh. Not only can universities avoid dealing with
graduate student unions, they are also free to retaliate
against graduate students who act together to address
their working conditions.
I.
We would adhere to the Board’s decision in NYU and
thus affirm the Regional Director’s decision in this case.
In NYU, applying principles that had recently been ar-
ticulated in Boston Medical Center,5 the Board held that
the graduate assistants involved there were employees
within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the Act, because
they performed services under the control and direction
of the university, for which they were compensated by
the university. The Board found “no basis to deny col-
lective-bargaining rights to statutory employees merely
because they are employed by an educational institution
in which they are enrolled as students.” 332 NLRB at
1205. It was undisputed, the Board observed, that
“graduate assistants are not within any category of work-
ers that is excluded from the definition of ‘employee’ in
Section 2(3).” Id. at 1206.
In turn, the Board rejected policy grounds as a basis
for effectively creating a new exclusion. Rejecting
claims that graduate assistants lacked a traditional eco-
nomic relationship with the university, the Board pointed
out that the relationship in fact paralleled that between
faculty and university, which was amenable to collective
bargaining. 332 NLRB at 1207–1208. The university’s
assertion that extending collective-bargaining rights to
graduate students would infringe on academic freedom
was also rejected. Such concerns, the Board explained,
were speculative. Citing 30 years of experience with
bargaining units of faculty members, and the flexibility
of collective bargaining as an institution, the Board con-
cluded that the “parties can ‘confront any issues of aca-
demic freedom as they would any other issue in collec-
tive bargaining.’” Id., quoting Boston Medical Center,
supra, 330 NLRB at 164.
Here, the Regional Director correctly applied the
Board’s decision in NYU. She concluded that the teach-
ing assistants (TAs), research assistants (RAs), and proc-
tors were statutory employees, because they performed

5 Boston Medical Center, 330 NLRB 152 (1999). That decision
concerned hospital interns, residents, and fellows (house staff) involved
in medical training as well as in patient care. In upholding their right to
engage in collective bargaining, despite their status as students, the
Board overruled St. Clare’s Hospital, supra. The Board’s decision
today explicitly notes that it “express[es] no opinion regarding” Boston
Medical Center. We believe that Boston Medical Center was correctly
decided.
services under the direction and control of Brown, and
were compensated for those services by the university.
With respect to the TAs, the Regional Director rejected,
on both factual and legal grounds, Brown’s attempt to
distinguish NYU on the basis that teaching was a degree
requirement at Brown. Finally, she found that the TAs,
RAs, and proctors were not, as Brown contended, merely
temporary employees who could not be included in a
bargaining unit. Accordingly, she directed a representa-
tion election, so that Brown’s graduate students could
choose for themselves whether or not to be represented
by a union.
We agree with the Regional Director’s decision in
each of these respects.
II.
Insisting that it is simply restoring traditional prece-
dent, the majority now overrules NYU and reverses the
Regional Director’s decision. It concludes that because
graduate assistants “are primarily students and have a
primarily educational, not economic, relationship with
their university,” they are not covered by the National
Labor Relations Act and the Board cannot exercise juris-
diction over them. According to the majority, “[p]rinci-
ples developed for use in the industrial setting cannot be
‘imposed blindly on the academic world.’”6
There are two chief flaws in the majority’s admonition.
First, the majority fails to come to grips with the statu-
tory principles that must govern this case. Second, it errs
in seeing the academic world as somehow removed from
the economic realm that labor law addresses—as if there
was no room in the ivory tower for a sweatshop.7 Before
addressing those flaws, we question the majority’s ac-
count of Board precedent in this area.

6 The majority quotes from the Supreme Court’s decision in NLRB v.
Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672, 680–681 (1980), in which the Court
held that, given their role in university governance, the faculty mem-
bers involved there were managerial employees, not covered by the
Act. The Court made clear, however, that not all faculty members at
every university would fall into the same category. 444 U.S. at 690 fn.
31. Following Yeshiva, the Board has continued to find faculty-
member bargaining units appropriate. See, e.g., Bradford College, 261
NLRB 565 (1982).
7 Graduate assistantships are modest, even at top schools. The Re-
gional Director found that at Brown the “basic stipend for a fellowship,
teaching assistantship, research assistantship, or proctorship is $12,800
for the 2001–2002 academic year.” According to a 2003 report, the
“average amount received by full-time, full-year graduate and first-
professional students with assistantships was $9,800.” Susan P. Choi &
Sonya Geis, “Student Financing of Graduate and First-Professional
Education, 1999–2000,” National Center for Education Statistics, Insti-
tute of Education Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Education 22 (2003). It
stands to reason that graduate student wages are low because, to quote
Sec. 1 of the Act, the “inequality of bargaining power” between schools
and graduate employees has the effect of “depressing wage rates.” 29
U.S.C. §151.

BROWN UNIVERSITY 495
A.
Seeking to avoid the consequences of overruling such
a recent precedent, the majority contends that Leland
Stanford, not NYU, correctly resolves the issue presented
here. The majority argues, moreover, that Leland Stan-
ford itself was consistent with a decision that came be-
fore it, Adelphi University.8 In fact, until today, the
Board has never held that graduate teaching assistants (in
contrast to certain research assistants and medical house
staff) are not employees under the Act and therefore
should not be allowed to form bargaining units of their
own—or, indeed, enjoy any of the Act’s protections.
In Adelphi University, decided in 1972, the Board ex-
cluded graduate assistants from a bargaining unit of fac-
ulty members because they did not share a community of
interest with the faculty, not because they were not statu-
tory employees. 195 NLRB at 640. The Board pointed
out, among other things, that “graduate assistants are
guided, instructed, and corrected in the performance of
their assistantship duties by the regular faculty members
to whom they are assigned.” Id. Nothing in the Board’s
decision suggests that the graduate assistants could not
have formed a bargaining unit of their own.
The Leland Stanford Board, as the majority acknowl-
edges, “went further” in 1974. It concluded that because
the research assistants (RAs) there were “primarily stu-
dents” (citing Adelphi University), they were “not em-
ployees within the meaning of . . . the Act.” 214 NLRB
at 623. How the conclusion followed from the premise
was not explained. The rationale of Leland Stanford,
moreover, turned on the particular nature of the research
assistants’ work. The Board observed that:

[T]he relationship of the RA’s and Stanford is not
grounded on the performance of a given task where
both the task and the time of its performance is desig-
nated and controlled by the employer. Rather it is a
situation of students within certain academic guidelines
having chosen particular projects on which to spend the
time necessary, as determined by the project’s needs.

Id. at 623. This narrow rationale is not inconsistent with
NYU, where the Board actually applied Leland Stanford
to exclude certain graduate assistants from the bargaining
unit. 332 NLRB at 1209 fn. 10.
Finally, the majority cites Cedars-Sinai Medical Cen-
ter, 223 NLRB 251 (1976), and St.Clare’s Hospital, su-
pra, which involved medical interns, residents, and clini-
cal fellows. The medical housestaff decisions, issued
over the sharp dissents of then-Chairman Fanning, were

8 Adelphi University, 195 NLRB 639 (1972).
correctly overruled in Boston Medical Center, supra,
which the majority leaves in place.
Notably, in St. Clare’s Hospital, the Board made clear
that while “housestaff are not ‘employees,’” the Board
was not “renouncing entirely [its] jurisdiction over such
individuals,” but rather was simply holding that they did
not have “bargaining privileges” under the Act. 229
NLRB at 1003 (footnote omitted). The majority here
does not seem to make this distinction—which would
give graduate assistants at least some protections under
the Act—and thus itself seems to depart from the prece-
dent it invokes.
In sum, while the NYU Board did not write on a clean
slate, it hardly abandoned a long line of carefully rea-
soned, uncontroversial decisions. And, as we will ex-
plain, much has changed in the academic world since the
1970’s.
B.
The principle applied in NYU—and the one that should
be followed here—is that the Board must give effect to
the plain meaning of Section 2(3) of the Act and its
broad definition of “employee,” which “reflects the
common law agency doctrine of the conventional master-
servant relationship.” NYU, 332 NLRB at 1205, citing
NLRB v. Town & Country Electric, 516 U.S. 85, 93–95
(1995). See also Seattle Opera v. NLRB, 292 F.3d 757,
761–762 (D.C. Cir. 2002), enfg. 331 NLRB 1072 (2000)
(opera’s auxiliary choristers are statutory employees,
applying common-law test). Section 2(3) provides in
relevant part that the “term ‘employee’ shall include any
employee . . . .” 29 U.S.C. §152(3) (emphasis added).
Congress specifically envisioned that professional em-
ployees—defined in Section 2(12) in terms that easily
encompass graduate assistants—would be covered by the
Act.
We do not understand the majority to hold that the
graduate assistants in this case are not common-law em-
ployees, a position that only Member Schaumber reaches
toward.9 Here, the Board’s “departure from the common

9 Member Schaumber asserts that “graduate student assistants fit
poorly within the common law definition of ‘employee.’” He main-
tains that graduate assistants are “not ‘hired’ to serve” in that capacity,
that their work is “not performed ‘for’ the university, as such,” and that
their stipends “are not a quid pro quo for services rendered.” We dis-
agree in each respect, as a factual matter. As the Regional Director
found, graduate assistants carry out the work of the university, not their
own projects, and they are compensated for it. There can be no doubt,
of course, that Brown had the right to control the performance of the
graduate assistants’ work for the university, a key test for employee
status at common law. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF AGENCY §2(2)
(1958) (“A servant is an agent employed by a master to perform service
in his affairs whose physical conduct in the performance of the service
is controlled or is subject to the right to control by the master”).

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 496
law of agency” with respect to employee status is unrea-
sonable. Compare Town & Country Electric, supra, 516
U.S. at 94 (upholding Board’s interpretation of term
“employee” as “consistent with the common law”). See
also Seattle Opera, 292 F.3d at 765 fn. 11 (Board’s hy-
pothetical “neglect of the common law definition could
have rendered its decision arbitrary and capricious”).
Nothing in Section 2(3) excludes statutory employees
from the Act’s protections, on the basis that the employ-
ment relationship is not their “primary” relationship with
their employer. In this respect, the majority’s approach
bears a striking resemblance to the Board’s original “eco-
nomic realities” test for employee status, which Congress
expressly rejected when it passed the Taft-Hartley
Amendments in 1947. That test was based on economic
and policy considerations, rather than on common-law
principles, but it did not survive.10
Absent compelling indications of Congressional intent,
the Board simply is not free to create an exclusion from
the Act’s coverage for a category of workers who meet
the literal statutory definition of employees. As the NYU
Board observed, there is no such exclusion for “stu-
dents.” 332 NLRB at 1206. Cf. Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB,
467 U.S. 883, 891–892 (1984) (observing that the
“breadth of [the Act’s] definition is striking” and noting
lack of express exemption for undocumented aliens).
Here, the majority cites nothing in the text or structure of
the Act, nothing in the Act’s legislative history, and no
other Federal statute that bears directly on the issues pre-
sented. It goes without saying that the Board’s own
policymaking is bounded by the limits Congress has set.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Yeshiva, supra, is in-
structive on this point. There, the Court considered
whether university faculty members at one institution
were managerial employees and so excluded from cover-
age. It observed that it could not

decide this case by weighing the probable benefits and
burdens of faculty collective bargaining. That, after all,
is a matter for Congress, not this Court.

444 U.S. at 690 fn. 29 (citation omitted). Other Federal
courts have made similar observations in analogous cases,
choosing to follow the plain language of the Act, rather than
“attempting to ‘second guess’ Congress on a political and
philosophical issue.” Cincinnati Assn. for the Blind v.
NLRB, 672 F.2d 567, 571 (6th Cir. 1982), cert. denied 459

Graduate students are clearly neither volunteers nor independent con-
tractors.
10 See NLRB v. United Insurance Co., 390 U.S. 254, 256 (1968) (dis-
cussing Congressional overruling of NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc.,
322 U.S. 111 (1944)). As we will explain, we believe that the economic
realities here do support finding statutory coverage in any case.
U.S. 835 (1982) (refusing to find exception to Sec. 2(3) of
Act for disabled workers employed in sheltered work-
shops).11 In a recent case where the Act’s language was far
less clear, our colleagues themselves have insisted that the
statutory text alone dictated the outcome—indeed, they
were content to “examine a particular statutory provision
[Section 8(g) of the Act] in isolation” (to quote their words
here).12 The approach taken in this case stands in sharp
contrast.
The majority never addresses the language of Section
2(3), which the Supreme Court has described as “broad.”
Town & Country Electric, 516 U.S. at 90 (citing diction-
ary definition of “employee” as including any “person
who works for another in return for financial or other
compensation”). Instead, it proceeds directly to consult
“Congressional policies for guidance in determining the
outer limits of statutory employee status.” The majority
cites the exclusion for managerial employees, which is
not based on the Act’s text. But in that example, as the
Supreme Court explained, the “legislative history
strongly suggests that there . . . were . . . employees . . .
regarded as so clearly outside the Act that no specific
exclusionary provision was thought necessary.” NLRB v.
Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267, 283 (1974). Graduate
assistants simply do not fall into that category.
The Board’s decision in WBAI Pacifica Foundation,
328 NLRB 1273 (1999), quoted by the majority, does not
support its position here. That case involved the unpaid
staff of a noncommercial radio station, who did not re-
ceive compensation or benefits of any kind, and whose
work hours were “a matter within their discretion and
desire.” Id. at 1273. The Board found “no economic
aspect to their relationship with the Employer, either
actual or anticipated.” Id. at 1275 (emphasis added).
“Unpaid staff,” the Board observed, “do not depend upon
the Employer, even in part, for their livelihood or for the
improvement of their economic standards.” Id. at 1276.
Rather, the Board explained, unpaid staff “work[ed] out
of an interest in seeing the station continue to exist and
thrive, out of concern for the content of the programs
they produce, and for the personal enrichment of doing a

11 See also NLRB v. Lighthouse for the Blind of Houston, 696 F.2d
399, 404 fn. 21 (5th Cir. 1983) (rejecting argument that Board lacked
jurisdiction over sheltered workshop and disabled workers employed
there). We believe that the Board’s approach in this area—the Board
chooses to exercise jurisdiction only where the relationship between
disabled workers and their employer is “typically industrial,” as op-
posed to “primarily rehabilitative”—is ripe for reconsideration, particu-
larly in light of the evolution of Federal policy toward disabled work-
ers. See NYU, 332 NLRB at 1207 (discussing disabled-worker cases).
The issue is now pending before the Board in Brevard Achievement
Center, Inc., Case 12–RC–8515 (review granted Aug. 23, 2000).
12 Alexandria Clinic, 339 NLRB 1262, 1264 fn. 8 (2003).

BROWN UNIVERSITY 497
service to the community and receiving recognition from
the community.” Id. at 1275.
The relationship between Brown and its graduate assis-
tants is clearly different in nature. Teaching assistants,
the Regional Director found, “perform services under the
direction and control of Brown”—they teach under-
graduates, just as faculty members do13—and “are com-
pensated for these services by Brown,” by way of a sti-
pend, health fee, and tuition remission. As for research
assistants in the social sciences and humanities (who
were included in the bargaining unit), the Regional Di-
rector observed that they “have expectations placed upon
them other than their academic achievement, in exchange
for compensation.”14 The proctors, finally, are “perform-
ing services that are not integrated with an academic pro-
gram,” such as working in university offices and muse-
ums. Notably, the Regional Director found that Brown
withholds income taxes from the stipends of teaching
assistants, research assistants, and proctors and requires
them to prove their eligibility for employment under Fed-
eral immigration laws.
The majority is mistaken, then, when it insists that the
graduate assistants here do not receive “consideration for
work,” but merely financial aid. While it is true, as the
majority observes, that “all the petitioned-for individuals
are students and must first be enrolled at Brown to be
awarded a TA, RA, or proctorship,” that fact does not
foreclose a meaningful economic relationship (as well as
an educational relationship) between Brown and the
graduate assistants. The Act requires merely the exis-
tence of such an economic relationship, not that it be the
only or the primary relationship between a statutory em-
ployee and a statutory employer.15
C.
Even assuming that the Board were free to decide this
case essentially on policy grounds, the majority’s ap-
proach, minimizing the economic relationship between
graduate assistants and their universities, is unsound. It

13 The Regional Director found that the number of teaching assis-
tantships, and the assignment of assistants to particular courses, is tied
to undergraduate enrollment. She also found that Brown had “failed to
demonstrate that most teaching assistantships at Brown are undertaken
in order to fulfill a degree requirement.”
14 The Regional Director found “insufficient evidence . . . upon
which to conclude that as a general rule the RAs in the social sciences
and humanities departments perform research as part of their studies in
order to complete their dissertations,” in contrast to RA’s in the physi-
cal sciences, who were not included in the unit.
15 See, e.g., Seattle Opera, 292 F.3d at 762 (“[T]he person asserting
employee status [under the Act] does have such status if (1) he works
for a statutory employer in return for financial or other compensation
. . . and (2) the statutory employer has the power or right to control and
direct the person in the material details of how such work is to be per-
formed”).
rests on fundamental misunderstandings of contemporary
higher education, which reflect our colleagues’ unwill-
ingness to take a close look at the academic world. To-
day, the academy is also a workplace for many graduate
students, and disputes over work-related issues are com-
mon. As a result, the policies of the Act—increasing the
bargaining power of employees, encouraging collective
bargaining, and protecting freedom of association—
apply in the university context, too. Not only is the ma-
jority mistaken in giving virtually no weight to the com-
mon-law employment status of graduate assistants, it also
errs in failing to see that the larger aims of Federal labor
law are served by finding statutory coverage here. In-
deed, the majority’s policy concerns are not derived from
the Act at all, but instead reflect an abstract view about
what is best for American higher education—a subject
far removed from the Board’s expertise.
American higher education was being transformed
even as the Board’s “traditional” approach to graduate-
student unionization developed. Nearly a decade before
the Board decided St. Clare’s Hospital, distinguished
scholar and Columbia University administrator Jacques
Barzun described changes that were tearing “apart the
fabric of the former, single-minded” American univer-
sity. He warned that “a big corporation has replaced the
once self-centered company of scholars.”16 In deciding
to exercise jurisdiction over private, nonprofit universi-
ties more than 30 years ago (and reversing longstanding
precedent in doing so), the Board recognized this devel-
opment.17
After the 1980’s, financial resources from govern-
ments became more difficult for universities to obtain.18
“[A]s financial support for colleges and universities lag
behind escalating costs, campus administrators increas-
ingly turn to ill-paid, overworked part- or full-time ad-
junct lecturers and graduate students to meet instruc-
tional needs.”19 By December 2000, 23.3 percent of col-
lege instructors were graduate teaching assistants.20

16 Jacques Barzun, The American University: How It Runs, Where It
Is Going 3 (1968).
17 See Cornell University, 183 NLRB 329, 331–333 (1970), overrul-
ing Trustees of Columbia University, 97 NLRB 424 (1951).
18 See, e.g., Clark Kerr, Troubled Times for American Higher Edu-
cation: The 1990s and Beyond 3 (1994).
19 COMMITTEE ON PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT, MODERN
LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION, FINAL REPORT 3 (1997) at http://www.-
mla.org/resources/documents/rep_employment/prof-employment1
(examining higher education’s pedagogical and professional crisis and
proposing ways to increase the effectiveness of higher education).
20 Reliance on Part-Time Faculty Members and How They Are
Treated, Selected Disciplines, CHRON. HIGHER EDUC., Dec. 1, 2000,
available at http://chronicle.com/prm/weekley/v47/i14/14a01301.htm.
See also Hutchens & Hutchens, supra, Catching the Union Bug, 39
GONZAGA L. REV. at 126 (“In an effort to contain costs, colleges and

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 498
The reason for the widespread shift from tenured fac-
ulty to graduate teaching assistants and adjunct instruc-
tors is simple: cost savings. Graduate student teachers
earn a fraction of the earnings of faculty members.21
Two perceptive scholars have recently described the
context in which union organizing among graduate stu-
dents has developed. Their description is worth quoting
at length:

The post World War II expansion of universities is a
well-documented phenomenon. Enrollments, re-
sources, and activities increased and diversified. Uni-
versities were transformed into mega-complexes. But
by the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the realiza-
tion spread that expansion was not limitless. In re-
sponse to heightened accountability demands, universi-
ties adopted management strategies that entailed belt-
tightening and restructuring of the academic workplace
. . . . [M]any universities replaced full-time tenure-track
faculty lines with non-tenure-line and part-time ap-
pointments.
. . . .

Expansion of doctoral degree production has
continued nonetheless . . . . The discrepancy be-
tween ideals and realities prompt graduate students
to consider unionization a viable solution to their
concerns and an avenue to redress their sense of
powerlessness.

. . . .

Among the primary reasons for graduate student
unionization is the lengthened time required to com-
plete a degree, coupled with an increased reluctance
on the part of students to live in what they perceive
as academic ghettos. Many older graduate students
desire to start families, need health care coverage
and job security, and perceive the faculty with whom
they work to be living in comparative luxury….
[D]ata show that the unionization of these individu-
als is driven fundamentally by economic realities.

Daniel J. Julius & Patricia J. Gumport, Graduate Student
Unionization: Catalysts and Consequences, 26 REVIEW OF

universities have increasingly relied on graduate students and non-
tenure-track instructors”). Illustrating this trend, the New York Times
recently reported that graduate students “teach more than half of the
core courses that all Columbia [University] students must take.” Karen
W. Arenson, Pushing for Union, Columbia Grad Students Are Set to
Strike, NEW YORK TIMES, p. A-11 (April 17, 2004).
21 Ana Marie Cox, More Professors Said to Be Off Tenure Track, for
Graduate Assistants, CHRON. HIGHER EDUC. (July 6, 2001) available at
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v47/i43/43a01201.htm. See also
Stipends for Graduate Assistants, 2001, CHRON. HIGHER EDUC., Sept.
28, 2002, available at http://chronicle.com/stats/stipends/.
HIGHER EDUC. No. 2, 187 at 191, 196 (2002) (emphasis
added; citations omitted).
Describing the same process, another scholar observes
that the “increased dependence on graduate assistantships
has created a group of workers who demand more eco-
nomic benefits and workplace rights.”22 The question,
then, is whether the collective efforts of these workers
will be protected by Federal labor law and channeled into
the processes the law creates. Given the likelihood that
graduate students will continue to pursue their economic
interests through union organizing—even those who live
the life of the mind must eat—there are powerful reasons
to apply the Act and so encourage collective bargaining
to avoid labor disputes, as Congress envisioned.23 The
prospect of continued labor unrest on campus, with or
without Federal regulation, is precisely what prompted
the Board to assert jurisdiction over private nonprofit
universities in the first place, three decades ago.24
The majority ignores the developments that led to the
rise of graduate student organizing or their implications
for the issue decided today. Instead, it treats the Board’s
1974 decision in Leland Stanford, together with the 1977
decision in St. Clare’s Hospital, as the last word. Like
other regulatory agencies, however, the Board is “neither
required nor supposed to regulate the present and the
future within the inflexible limits of yesterday,” but
rather must “adapt [its] rules and practices to the Na-
tion’s needs in a volatile changing economy.” American
Trucking Associations v. Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe
Railway Co., 387 U.S. 397, 416 (1967).25 The majority’s
failure to do so in this case is arbitrary.
III.
At the core of the majority’s argument are the twin no-
tions that (1) issues related to the terms and conditions of
graduate student employment are “not readily adaptable
to the collective-bargaining process,” St. Clare’s Hospi-
tal, 229 NLRB at 1002; and (2) imposing collective bar-
gaining will harm “academic freedom” (as the majority

22 Gordon J. Hewitt, Graduate Student Employee Collective Bar-
gaining and the Educational Relationship between Faculty and Gradu-
ate Students, 29 J. COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
153, 154 (2000). See also Hutchens & Hutchens, supra, Catching the
Union Bug, 39 GONZAGA L. REV. at 126 (“[T]he reality at many institu-
tions likely belies a picture of students carefully mentored by faculty in
their employment capacities, especially in the context of teaching assis-
tants.”).
23 See Sec. 1, 29 U.S.C. §151.
24 See Cornell University, supra, 183 NLRB at 333.
25 The Board’s recent failure to face contemporary economic reali-
ties threatens to become a recurring theme of its decisions. See MV
Transportation, 337 NLRB 770, 776 (2002) (Member Liebman, dis-
senting) (criticizing Board’s reversal of successor-bar doctrine, despite
large increase in corporate mergers and acquisitions that destabilize
workplaces).

BROWN UNIVERSITY 499
defines it) and the quality of higher education. Neither
notion is supported by empirical evidence of any kind.
In fact, the evidence refutes them.
How can it be said that the terms and conditions of
graduate-student employment are not adaptable to collec-
tive bargaining when collective bargaining over these
precise issues is being conducted successfully in univer-
sities across the nation? New York University, ironi-
cally, is a case in point, but it is hardly alone. The re-
cently-reached collective–bargaining agreement there
addresses such matters as stipends, pay periods, disci-
pline and discharge, job posting, a grievance-and-
arbitration procedure, and health insurance. It also con-
tains a “management and academic rights” clause, which
provides that:

Decisions regarding who is taught, what is taught, how
it is taught and who does the teaching involve academic
judgment and shall be made at the sole discretion of the
University.

Collective–Bargaining Agreement between New York Uni-
versity and International Union, UAW, AFL–CIO and Lo-
cal 2110, Technical Office and Professional Workers, UAW
(Sept. 1, 2001–Aug. 31, 2005), Art. XXII.26 The NYU
agreement neatly illustrates the correctness of the NYU
Board’s view that the institution of collective bargaining is
flexible enough to succeed in this context, as it has in so
many others, from manufacturing to entertainment, health
care to professional sports.
The NYU agreement cannot be dismissed as an anom-
aly. The amicus briefs to the Board submitted by the
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL–CIO) and the American Association
of University Professors (AAUP) inform us of many
other, established collective–bargaining relationships
between graduate student unions and universities.27 To
be sure, most involve public universities, but there is
nothing fundamentally different between collective bar-

26 The collective-bargaining agreement is posted on the University’s
Internet website at http://www.nyu.edu/hr/.
27 The AFL–CIO, for example, cites bargaining relationships at the
University of California, the University of Florida, the University of
South Florida, the University of Iowa, the University of Kansas, the
University of Massachusetts, Michigan State University, the University
of Michigan, Rutgers, the City University of New York, New York
University, the State University of New York, the University of Ore-
gon, Temple University, the University of Wisconsin, and Wayne State
University. Brief of Amicus Curiae AFL–CIO in Support of Petitioner
at 36 (May 20, 2002). See also Julius & Gumport, supra, Graduate
Student Unionization, 26 Review of Higher Education at 192–193
(Table 1: “The Status of Graduate Student Unions in U.S. Institu-
tions”).
gaining in public-sector and private-sector universities.28
The majority concedes that the subjects of graduate stu-
dent collective bargaining “give the appearance of being
terms and conditions of employment.” Obviously, they
are terms and conditions of employment, as found in a
particular setting.
There remains the majority’s claim that collective bar-
gaining can only harm “academic freedom” and educa-
tional quality. Putting aside the issue of the Board’s au-
thority to serve as an expert guardian of these interests,
the question is one of evidence. Here, too, the majority’s
claims are not simply unsupported, but are actually con-
tradicted. The majority emphasizes that collective bar-
gaining is “predicated on the collective or group treat-
ment of represented individuals,” while the “educational
process” involves personal relationships between indi-
vidual students and faculty members. The issue, if one is
presented at all by this difference, is whether the two
processes can coexist. Clearly, they can. The evidence
is not just the ongoing collective-bargaining relationships
between universities and graduate students already men-
tioned. It also includes studies ignored by the majority,
which show that collective bargaining has not harmed
mentoring relationships between faculty members and
graduate students.29 These conclusions are not surpris-
ing. Collective bargaining is typically conducted by rep-
resentatives of the university and graduate students’ un-
ions, not individual mentors and their students.
After a careful review, scholars Daniel Julius and
Patricia Gumport, for example, concluded not only that
“fears that [collective bargaining] will undermine men-
toring relationships . . . appear to be foundationless,” but
also that data “suggest that the clarification of roles and
employment policies can enhance mentoring relation-
ships.”30 Scholar Gordon Hewitt reached a similar con-
clusion based on an analysis of the attitudes of almost
300 faculty members at five university campuses with at
least 4-year histories of graduate-student collective bar-
gaining. Summarizing the results of his survey, Hewitt
observes that:

28 The majority points out that “states have the authority to limit bar-
gaining subjects for public academic employees.” But under the Act,
not every subject of interest to graduate assistants would be a manda-
tory subject of bargaining. The Board presumably would be free to
take into account the nature of the academic enterprise in deciding
which subjects are mandatory and which merely permissive. See fn.
32, infra (discussing statutory bargaining obligations).
29 See Julius & Gumport, supra, Graduate Student Unionization, 26
Review of Higher Education at 201–209; Hewitt, supra, Graduate Stu-
dent Employee Collective Bargaining and the Educational Relationship
between Faculty and Graduate Students, 29 Journal of Collective Nego-
tiations in the Public Sector at 159-164.
30 Julius & Gumport, supra, 26 Review of Higher Education at 201, 209.

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 500
It is clear . . . that faculty do not have a negative attitude
toward graduate student collective bargaining. It is im-
portant to reiterate that the results show faculty feel
graduate assistants are employees of the university,
support the right of graduate students to bargain collec-
tively, and believe collective bargaining is appropriate
for graduate students. It is even more important to re-
state that, based on their experiences, collective bar-
gaining does not inhibit their ability to advise, instruct,
or mentor their graduate students.

Hewitt, supra, 29 Journal of Collective Negotiations in the
Public Sector at 164 (emphasis added). Amicus AAUP
echoes these views in its brief to the Board. These findings
should give the majority some pause, as should the obvious
fact that whether or not the rights of graduate student em-
ployees are to be recognized under the Act, economic con-
cerns have already intruded on academic relationships.
Finally, the majority invokes “academic freedom” as a
basis for denying graduate student employees any rights
under the Act. This rationale adds insult to injury. To
begin, the majority defines “academic freedom” so
broadly that it is necessarily incompatible with any con-
straint on the managerial prerogatives of university ad-
ministrators. But academic freedom properly focuses on
efforts to regulate the “content of the speech engaged in
by the university or those affiliated with it.” University
of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182, 197 (1990). On
the majority’s view, private universities should not be
subject to the Act at all. But, of course, they are—just as
are newsgathering organizations, whose analogous
claims of First Amendment immunity from the Act were
rejected by the Supreme Court long ago.31
The NYU Board correctly explained that, the threat to
academic freedom in this context—properly understood
in terms of free speech in the university setting—was
pure conjecture. 332 NLRB at 1208 fn. 9. We hasten to
add that graduate students themselves have a stake in
academic freedom, which they presumably will be reluc-
tant to endanger in collective bargaining. As demon-
strated in the amicus brief of the AAUP (a historical
champion of academic freedom), collective bargaining
and academic freedom are not incompatible; indeed, aca-

31 Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U.S. 103, 130–133 (1937).
demic freedom for instructors can be strengthened
through collective bargaining.32
IV.
“[W]e declare the federal law to be that graduate stu-
dent assistants are not employees within the meaning of
Section 2(3) of the Act,” says the majority. But the ma-
jority has overstepped its authority, overlooked the eco-
nomic realities of the academic world, and overruled
NYU without ever coming to terms with the rationale for
that decision. The result leaves graduate students outside
the Act’s protection and without recourse to its mecha-
nisms for resolving labor disputes. The developments
that brought graduate students to the Board will not go
away, but they will have to be addressed elsewhere, if the
majority’s decision stands. That result does American
universities no favors. We dissent.

32 The majority contends (1) that the “imposition of collective bar-
gaining on the relationship between a university and its graduate stu-
dents . . . ” would limit the university’s [academic] freedom to deter-
mine a wide range of matters;” and (2) that “because graduate student
assistants are students, those limitations intrude on core academic free-
doms in a manner simply not present in cases involving faculty em-
ployees.” We disagree with both claims.
First, under Sec. 8(d) of the Act, collective bargaining would be lim-
ited to “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment”
for graduate student assistants. 29 U.S.C. §158(d). And with respect to
those mandatory subjects of bargaining, the “Act does not compel
agreements between employers and employees,” just the “free opportu-
nity for negotiation,” as the NYU Board correctly observed. 332 NLRB
at 1208, quoting NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 45
(1937).
Second, the basis for the majority’s distinction between faculty-
member bargaining and graduate-assistant bargaining escapes us. In
our view, there is no harm to genuine academic freedom in either case.
But under the majority’s view, faculty-member bargaining would inter-
fere with the prerogatives of university management at least as much as
graduate-student bargaining would. It is surely the subjects of bargain-
ing that matter, not the identity of the bargaining party. In that respect,
the similarities between graduate assistants and faculty members (in
contrast to clerical or maintenance staff members, for example) is clear.