U. Chicago Law Students File Lawsuit Over Forced Dues to Anti-Israel Union
“The students object to their money being used to support the ‘Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions,’ campaign against Israel and other political positions taken by the union.”
When the left is in charge, they just do what they want. These students are right to fight back.
The College Fix reports:
UChicago law students fight forced dues to anti-Israel union
University of Chicago law students have filed a free speech lawsuit against their union due to its support for Israel boycotts.
The pending federal complaint says the Graduate Students Union at UChicago infringes on students free speech rights via “a recent collective bargaining agreement.”
The agreement requires graduate students “either become dues paying members of the union, or pay an equivalent ‘agency fee,’ as a condition of continuing their work as teaching assistants, research assistants, or similar positions.”
The students object to their money being used to support the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions,” campaign against Israel and other political positions taken by the union. The law students, as research assistants, were quickly added into the union in March 2024 following a rapid vote. Less than 10 percent of UChicago law students voted in the election.
Both GSU and its parent union, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, support the boycott, which claims that Israel is an “apartheid regime” that has committed “ethnic cleansing” and is “occupying Palestine.”
Similarly, the graduate union at the University of Chicago has joined “UChicago United for Palestine Coalition” and “reaffirmed” its commitment to BDS “just one week after the October 7 terrorist attacks,” according to the lawsuit.
The students filing the complaint depend on their jobs as teaching and research assistants to advance their careers and to provide for their education and cost-of-living expenses. And some, as the claim states, are “tortured as to how to weigh their consciences against their careers.”
The graduate union did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment in the past several weeks from The College Fix.
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Comments
if lefty cant take it by force
they’d lose $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Exactly. I thought it was similar to decades ago when anyone who signed up for Intro to Teaching as a gimme 3 hours had to “join” (and pay dues of $0.50 for the semester IIRC) the Lefty NEA, which wasn’t anywhere near as far left more than half a century ago. Difference these kids are depending on the income.
This type of union contract has been the accepted practice in Illinois virtually forever.
The plaintiffs have absolutely no chance in prevailing.
When I was professor I was able to get enough faculty to refuse to pay our union dues because of the same issue. While we were forced to pay it by deducting it from our pay roll; enough of us refused to sign the auto deduction form, and the union gave up. Another tool is demanding a paper check and then the amount can’t be auto deducted, which some faculty chose as their way to protest. Anyway this is was in Tax-chussettes , so anything is possible.
Paper check? Who does that?
My monthlies throw a fit because I still want a paper bill.
Since less than 10% voted to join the union in a rushed vote most likely during the summer recess which is a common tactic, it sounds to me that the best choice for those students is to force a decertification vote and throw the union out.