MIT grad students win right to redirect union dues amid discrimination claims

Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman reports an increase in calls from university students and faculty across the nation seeking guidance on how to defund campus unions. This comes after MIT graduate students successfully challenged the Graduate Student Union (GSU) over dues demands.

MIT Ph.D. student Will Sussman voiced concerns about the GSU's stance, stating, "Jewish graduate students are a minority at MIT. We can’t remove the [Graduate Student Union (GSU)] or disabuse it of its antisemitism. But we also can’t support an organization that actively works toward the eradication of the Jewish homeland, where I have family living now." Sussman and other students opposed mandatory union dues enforced by rulings from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during President Biden and President Obama's administrations.

Sussman, along with fellow Jewish graduate students Joshua Fried, Akiva Gordon, Adina Bechhofer, and Tamar Kadosh Zhitomirsky, sought legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. They filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming denial of religious accommodations as per Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The students achieved full accommodations to stop funding the union.