National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University

National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University (1980) stands out as perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court's most significant ruling on whether faculty members may organize and bargain collectively with officials representing their private colleges and universities. In Yeshiva, a closely divided Court affirmed that because fulltime faculty members at a private university exercised what it described as absolute authority in helping to establish guidelines with regard to such [Page 332]academic matters as scheduling classes, selecting teaching methods, setting grading policies, determining teaching loads, establishing pay scales and benefits packages, and deciding who is awarded tenure, promotion, and sabbaticals, they essentially exercised managerial duties. The controlling consideration in this case is that the faculty of Yeshiva University exercises authority that in any other context unquestionably would ...