A university may be gearing up to challenge the Columbia standard, which held that graduate student teaching and research assistants may qualify as employees under the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) and therefore can unionize.
On September 14, 2026, Stanford University filed an emergency motion to stay an election challenging a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) Regional Director’s (“RD”) application of the Columbia framework. The RD determined that undergraduate residential student leaders (“RSLs”) could vote on whether they wanted to be represented by a union. While the NLRB is permitting the election to proceed, it invited Stanford to file a Request for Review on whether the NLRB should decline jurisdiction.
Background
Though Section 2(3) of the Act defines “employee” in broad terms, it does not explicitly address whether students performing teaching and research services at private universities in exchange for stipends are included. Since the 1970s, the NLRB has issued multiple decisions addressing the scope of “employee” to determine whether student teaching and research assistants qualify under the Act.
In Adelphi University, 195 NLRB 639, 640 (1972), the NLRB found graduate students serving as teaching and research assistants were “primarily students,” not “employees.” The NLRB subsequently reversed itself three times: first in New York University, 332 NLRB 1205 (2000) (graduate teaching and research assistants were “employees”); next in Brown University,...
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