Johns Hopkins Ph.D. Student Slams UE Union With Federal Charges for Demanding She Divulge Private Info
Union demanded student be discharged even though nothing in union contract or federal law requires students to give up such info
Baltimore, MD (October 24, 2025) – Andrea Ori, a molecular biophysics Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins, has filed federal charges against United Electrical (UE) union officials at the university. She maintains that UE union bosses demanded her ouster from the academic program because she refused to turn over confidential financial records protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Ori filed her charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and adjudicating disputes between union officials, employers, and employees that arise under the statute. Even though the NLRA doesn’t include graduate students in its definition of “employees,” Obama NLRB appointees ruled in the controversial 2016 Columbia University decision that the NLRA allows union officials to gain monopoly bargaining power over graduate students at private universities, like Johns Hopkins.
Furthermore, Maryland is a state that lacks Right to Work protections, meaning union officials have the government-granted power to force those under their bargaining control to pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job.
At private universities in non-Right to Work states, union bosses can effectively end the graduate programs of students who refuse to pay union dues.
However, graduate students can opt out of dues payment for union political activities by invoking their rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America vs. Beck SCOTUS decision. Federal antidiscrimination law also requires that union officials and university administrators provide religious accommodations for students who oppose union financial support on religious grounds.
Charges: Threatening Student With Termination for Guarding Confidential Financial Info is Illegal “Industrial Capital Punishment” Under Federal Law
Ori, who had successfully obtained a religious accommodation to union dues payment in 2024, now maintains in her charge that UE union officials ordered her for months to turn over pay stubs and other documents that contain private information. Her charges argue that union officials made these demands arbitrarily and in bad faith.
“Nothing in the [union contract], the Charging Party’s religious accommodation, or the NLRA required Charging Party to disclose this private financial information, which was also protected by FERPA,” Ori’s charges say. FERPA generally requires student or parental consent before educational institutions can disclose identifying information to third parties, like unions. Union officials have no right to receive students’ private information.
Even though these demands have no basis, the charges say, UE union bosses are still trying to upend Ori’s academic career. “After months of threatening Charging Party and harassing her to produce these unnecessary and private financial documents containing personal information, the [UE] formally demanded that the University discharge Charging Party,” the charges say. Ori’s attorneys are arguing that the NLRB should consider the union’s wrongful discharge request a form of industrial capital punishment.
“Ms. Ori’s case is just the latest Foundation legal action to show why giving union bosses power over graduate students was never a good idea,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union officials, who are often radical political operatives, have threatened academic freedom from coast-to-coast with their federally-enforced clout over university administrations. But, as Ms. Ori’s case shows, they are also threatening graduate students’ careers by acting as if they have a right to send them packing for not divulging their private information.
“Foundation attorneys stand ready to defend graduate students anywhere from these and other rights violations by union officials,” Mix added. “The obvious conflict between these union boss power grabs over graduate students and students’ statutory privacy rights under FERPA is yet another reminder that Congress never intended for such students to be subjected to monopoly unionism under the National Labor Relations Act.”
Vanderbilt Grad Students Free From Aggressive UAW Campaign
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation-assisted students challenged union-backed NLRB demand for private info
Notorious UAW President Shawn Fain saw his union rebuffed by many Vanderbilt students concerned about the union’s intrusive organizing methods. Facing legal and political headwinds, UAW bosses dropped their campaign.
NASHVILLE, TN – Union monopoly bargaining creates barriers to freedom for people across the country. It requires workers to accept self-motivated union bosses as their sole “voice” on issues in their workplace. But, in the private sector, it’s unfortunately the law of the land.
That’s not as clear when it comes to colleges and universities. Although the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under President Obama upended existing precedent to dubiously let union officials impose monopoly arrangements on graduate students — a ruling continued by the Biden NLRB — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) generally bans universities from sharing student information without student permission. This puts FERPA and federal labor law at odds, as such information is something employers are required by the NLRB to produce during a unionization campaign.
After the United Auto Workers (UAW) union launched a campaign in late 2024 to sweep Vanderbilt University’s graduate students under their monopoly power, NLRB officials required the college to fork over the info of thousands of students. But three courageous students stood up with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, arguing that disclosure without any procedure violated their privacy rights under FERPA.
Now, union officials have backed down and withdrawn the entire union campaign at the college. The three students and others are free from being forced into UAW union monopoly ranks and from the disclosure of their FERPA-protected information.
“The withdrawal of UAW organizers’ petition seeking a vote to unionize us against our will is a welcome victory for us in our defense of our rights and the rights of our fellow graduate students,” commented one of the Foundation-assisted Vanderbilt graduate students, identified as Jane Doe 1 in legal filings to protect her identity.
Students: FERPA Lets Us Protect Private Info From Unionization Scheme
The students’ effort to protect their privacy began in October 2024, when two students identified in filings as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 moved to intervene in the NLRB case. They argued that FERPA’s language permits students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as Vanderbilt had from the NLRB. A regional NLRB official denied their motion to intervene. Foundation attorneys submitted an emergency appeal for John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 to the NLRB in Washington, DC, emphasizing that the students needed an opportunity to “address the serious privacy issues raised by the Region’s subpoena.”
Foundation attorneys additionally filed an updated motion to intervene that included Jane Doe 1 as another student seeking to intervene in the case. Several other graduate students also submitted less-formal objections urging the agency not to enforce a subpoena divulging their private information. The District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a ruling on November 22, 2024, temporarily releasing Vanderbilt from its obligation to comply with the NLRB subpoenas. A few weeks later, UAW union officials announced they were withdrawing their petition to unionize Vanderbilt graduate students, meaning the subpoenas seeking student information are effectively null and void.
Foundation Fights Union Malfeasance at Colleges Nationwide
Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys are assisting graduate students at Dartmouth and MIT with fighting attempts by United Electrical (UE)- affiliated unions to demand dues payments from students against their will and in violation of their rights. Kara Rzasa, a Dartmouth graduate student, and Michael Fernandez, an MIT graduate student, have each hit UE local and national affiliates with charges for illegal polices UE officials are utilizing nationwide when demanding forced dues payments.
“While we’re happy that the private information of Vanderbilt grad students is now secure, it’s clearer than ever that the biased NLRB decisions granting union bosses the ability to foist union monopolies over graduate students were wrong,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “In Foundation cases, we’ve seen union bosses put students’ academic freedom, religious freedom, and privacy protections all at risk, which is why the new appointees to the NLRB need to clarify that students are off-limits to union monopoly power schemes.”
Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt Graduate Students Challenge Forced Unionism
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation-backed students defend rights as union bosses seek more power at universities
Ben Logsdon is a Ph.D. student in mathematics at Dartmouth College. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that union officials’ refusals to accommodate his religious objections just don’t add up.
HANOVER, NH – Just weeks after National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys triumphed in anti-discrimination cases for Jewish Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate students who sought to stop forced dues payments to a radically anti-Israel union, union officials began creating other problems for university students.
In nearby New Hampshire, Dartmouth graduate student Benjamin Logsdon sought free Foundation legal aid against Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth (GOLD-UE) union officials. The GOLD union — which is an affiliate of the same United Electrical (UE) union involved in the Foundation’s MIT cases — is forcing Logsdon to accept the union’s monopoly “representation” powers against his will, even after he voiced his religious objections to the union’s radical stances on the conflict against Israel.
Grad Students Exposed to Union Coercion & Privacy Violations
Meanwhile, several graduate students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, are pushing back against an attempt by Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United (VGWU, an affiliate of United Auto Workers) union bosses to impose union control over them and their colleagues. Specifically, three students are seeking to intervene in a federal case in which VGWU union officials are illegally demanding the university hand over the students’ private information to aid in their unionization campaign. Foundation staff attorneys filed motions for intervention for these students in October 2024.
Foundation attorneys are arguing that union officials severely violate students’ rights in both of these cases. However, the reason that union officials are in power on college campuses at all traces back to flawed rulings from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under both the Obama Administration and Biden Administration. These rulings subject graduate students to pro-Big Labor provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which create issues for students’ freedom both inside and outside the classroom.
Logsdon, a Christian Ph.D. student in mathematics at Dartmouth, slammed the GOLD union with federal anti-discrimination charges in September 2024 at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to those charges, shortly after the GOLD union finalized its first monopoly bargaining contract with the Dartmouth administration, he sent a letter to United Electrical General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker explaining that he objected to being affiliated with GOLD on religious grounds and needed an accommodation.
“I sought to be removed from the UE and GOLD-UE bargaining unit as a reasonable accommodation,” Logsdon’s Foundation-backed charges say.
Dinkelaker refused to offer Logsdon an accommodation that “satisf[ied] [his] religious conscience or beliefs,” according to the charges, which violated his rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Courts have recognized a variety of Title VII religious accommodations over the years for men and women who have religious objections to union affiliation, including paying an amount equivalent to union dues to a charity instead of union bosses. However, Logsdon seeks a different accommodation: to remove himself from union bosses’ control entirely.
At Vanderbilt, three students who identify themselves in legal documents as “John Doe 1,” “John Doe 2,” and “Jane Doe 1” are contending in their Foundation-backed motions for intervention that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) forbids the Vanderbilt administration from disclosing their personal information to any third parties without their permission, including the VGWU union.
At the union’s behest, NLRB Region 10 has already hit the Vanderbilt administration with a pair of subpoenas demanding personal student info, while ignoring objections from several students expressing concern at the disclosure.
So far Vanderbilt has resisted the NLRB’s subpoenas, and fortunately a federal court has temporarily allowed the university to refuse to comply with them.
The Foundation-backed students’ motions to intervene argue that the subpoenas “are an attempt to violate FERPA’s protections, privileging union interests over the graduate students[’] privacy rights.” It also points out that FERPA allows students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as in this case.
The Vanderbilt students and their Foundation attorneys are demanding an opportunity to properly defend their privacy interests under FERPA. Foundation attorneys have already filed Requests for Review asking the NLRB in Washington, DC, to weigh in on the matter.
Union Monopoly Power Has No Place at Universities
“Graduate students around the country are discovering that union bosses don’t respect their individual rights and would rather use students as pawns to force their demands on a university administration, or advance an extreme political agenda,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“Union monopoly bargaining is a system particularly ill-suited to an academic environment. Indeed, it is wrong for anyone to have a union monopoly imposed on them against their will and then be forced to pay union dues under threat of termination.”
Ruling in Favor of Vanderbilt Grad Students’ Privacy Protections Prompts UAW Affiliate to Abandon Unionization Effort
Separately, Dartmouth and MIT graduate students charge UE affiliates with demanding union dues from them in violation of SCOTUS precedent
Nashville, TN (December 19, 2024) – Following three Vanderbilt University graduate students’ privacy-related legal challenges to the union’s efforts to gain monopoly bargaining privileges on campus, United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials have withdrawn their campaign at the school. The three students, who are identified in legal documents as “John Doe 1,” “John Doe 2,” and “Jane Doe 1,” received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in protecting their private information from UAW union officials.
The students invoked their rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which generally prohibits universities from disclosing students’ personal information to third parties without their consent. UAW union bosses sought this information from the three Foundation-represented students and thousands of others as part of the union campaign to place Vanderbilt graduate students under UAW union monopoly bargaining control. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued subpoenas for that info.
UAW Union Organizers Demanded Private Info Over Student Privacy Objections
In October, two students identified as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 moved to intervene in the NLRB case, arguing that FERPA’s language permits students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as in this case. Several other graduate students also submitted less-formal objections urging the agency not to enforce a subpoena divulging their private information. Despite the students’ concerns, a regional NLRB official ruled on October 18 that Vanderbilt had to comply with the UAW-requested subpoenas.
Foundation attorneys submitted an emergency appeal for John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 to the NLRB in Washington, DC, emphasizing that the students needed an opportunity to “address[] the serious privacy issues raised by the Region’s subpoena.” Foundation attorneys additionally filed an updated motion to intervene that included Jane Doe 1 as another student seeking to intervene in the case.
Following a rising tide of student opposition, the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a ruling on November 22 temporarily releasing Vanderbilt from its obligation to comply with the NLRB subpoenas. On December 12, UAW union officials announced they were withdrawing their petition to unionize Vanderbilt graduate students, meaning the union campaign has ended and the subpoenas seeking student information are effectively moot.
“Many of my colleagues and I simply want to pursue our academic studies, and oppose not only UAW organizers having our private contact information, but also being forced to associate with a union at all in order to earn our graduate degrees,” commented one of the Foundation-assisted Vanderbilt graduate students, identified as Jane Doe 1 in the legal filings. “The withdrawal of UAW organizers’ petition seeking a vote to unionize us against our will is a welcome victory for us in our defense of our rights and the rights of our fellow graduate students.”
Dartmouth, MIT Grad Students File New Cases Challenging UE Union’s Dues Seizures
Meanwhile, Foundation attorneys are assisting graduate students at Dartmouth and MIT with fighting attempts by United Electrical (UE)-affiliated unions to demand dues payments from students against their will and in violation of their rights. Kara Rzasa, a Dartmouth graduate student, and Michael Fernandez, an MIT graduate student, have each hit UE local and national affiliates with charges for illegal polices UE officials are utilizing nationwide when demanding forced dues payments.
Fernandez’s charge slams the UE for violating federal law, including the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck Supreme Court precedent, in how the union calculates the amount of fees it can require the students to pay. The charge notes UE union officials are using out of date, incomplete, and unaudited financial statements to attempt to extract more mandatory fees than can be legally justified.
Rzasa’s charge challenges the UE’s nationwide “window period” policy that blocks graduate students from opting out of full dues, including the portions that go to union activities UE officials admit are explicitly political. The charge notes this violates the National Labor Relations Act, the Beck decision, and other federal limits on union officials’ monopoly representation powers.
Separately, Foundation attorneys are assisting Dartmouth Ph.D. student Ben Logsdon in his effort to seek a religious accommodation that would exempt him from being “represented” by UE union officials. Logsdon objects on religious grounds to the ideological stances of the UE union and wants nothing to do with that union.
“While we’re happy that the private information of Vanderbilt grad students is now secure from prying union eyes, it’s clear from both that case and many other cases that Foundation attorneys are litigating for grad students around the country that union monopoly bargaining power has no place in the academic sphere,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union bosses were able to get a foothold at colleges and universities as the result of biased rulings from the NLRB under Obama and Biden, which has jeopardized not only academic freedom, but also religious freedom, and federal protections that students rely on for privacy and security.
“While no one in America should be forced to accept the control of a union boss hierarchy they oppose, courts and federal agencies in the new year should look to these cases as prime examples of why the union monopoly bargaining model should never have been extended to graduate students at all,” Mix added.
Citing Federal Student Privacy Law, Vanderbilt Graduate Students Move to Block UAW Union Organizers from Obtaining Their Personal Info
“John Doe” grad students resist Labor Board claim that labor law can override Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Nashville, TN (October 23, 2024) – Two graduate students at Vanderbilt University are seeking to intervene in a federal case in which Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United (VGWU, an affiliate of the United Auto Workers union, UAW) union officials are demanding personal information that the students wish to keep private. The students, who identify themselves in legal documents as “John Doe 1” and “John Doe 2,” have obtained free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to challenge a union subpoena demanding their personal information.
The students’ motion to intervene is now before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, following a special appeal from an NLRB Region 10 decision that tossed the motion on the specious ground that the students are “not a labor organization” and consequently have no interest in the case.
VGWU union bosses are seeking the students’ personal information as part of the union campaign to place Vanderbilt graduate students under UAW union monopoly bargaining control. NLRB Region 10 in Atlanta has issued a subpoena at the union’s behest seeking to force Vanderbilt University to hand over this information to union officials. However, the graduate students argue that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) forbids the Vanderbilt administration from disclosing this information to any third parties without their permission, including the UAW.
“The…subpoena to Vanderbilt is an attempt to violate FERPA’s protections, privileging union interests over the graduate students[’] privacy rights,” reads the graduate students’ appeal. “The Graduate Students seek to provide the Region legal arguments in support of their privacy interests, and against the…subpoena of Vanderbilt.”
Students Want Stop in Subpoena Enforcement So They Can Defend Their Privacy
The students’ original motion to intervene notes that FERPA’s language permits students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as in this case. In light of that, the students are asking for a halt in the subpoena’s enforcement so they can properly defend their privacy interests. While the motion notes that the NLRB’s standards for allowing intervention have been unclear over the years, it argues that the students’ goal to defend their privacy interests provides a solid ground for intervention.
The VGWU union is an affiliate of the UAW union, which has a penchant for ignoring or violating employee rights in pursuit of gaining greater power over workers, businesses, and other institutions. The union is still under federal monitoring following a years-long embezzlement probe that uncovered millions of dollars in workers’ dues money misspent on luxury items, gambling, vacations, and more. The probe resulted in the convictions of about a dozen top UAW bosses.
“UAW officials are seeking to override college students’ federal privacy protections, which in addition to having no basis in law also treats students as pawns in the union’s ascent to power at the university,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB under both Obama and Biden has twisted longstanding labor law to give union bosses the power to force students into dues-paying union ranks. But graduate students across the country are increasingly discovering that heavy-handed union monopoly bargaining power means less freedom both in and out of the classroom and more inefficiency, disruption, and radical political activism.
“Union monopoly bargaining is a system particularly ill-suited to an academic environment. But it also forces workers all over the country to associate with and pay dues to union bosses they never wanted and may have explicitly voted against,” Mix added. “The Vanderbilt students we represent are right to resist this kind of compulsion and we will defend their right to privacy.”
