## Facts

- Full-time faculty at a private New York university sought certification of a faculty association as their collective bargaining representative under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
- The university opposed certification, asserting the faculty were managerial or supervisory personnel and therefore not “employees” covered by the NLRA.
- The NLRB found the faculty were “professional employees,” rejected managerial status, directed an election, and certified the association after it won.
- The university refused to bargain, prompting an unfair labor practice proceeding; the NLRB ordered bargaining and sought enforcement.
- The court of appeals denied enforcement, concluding the faculty were managerial because they exercised extensive authority over academic and personnel matters central to university policy.
- The Supreme Court granted review.
- The governance record showed a central administration and trustees retained formal ultimate authority, but individual schools were substantially autonomous and faculty bodies exercised broad decision-making power.
- Faculty effectively determined core academic policies, including curriculum, grading systems, admission and matriculation standards, academic calendars, and course schedules.
- Faculty recommendations on hiring, tenure, promotion, sabbaticals, and termination were overwhelmingly implemented by the administration.

## Issues

1. Whether full-time private university faculty who substantially participate in academic and personnel policy-making are “employees” under the NLRA or excluded as managerial employees.
2. Whether the NLRB could compel the university to bargain with the certified faculty association despite the faculty’s role in institutional governance.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of enforcement of the NLRB’s bargaining order.
- The Court held the faculty were managerial employees excluded from NLRA coverage, so the NLRB could not require the university to bargain.
- The Court accepted that the NLRA does not expressly mention “managerial employees,” but treated their exclusion as established by longstanding Board and judicial practice.
- The majority concluded the faculty exercised authority that, functionally, constitutes management: they substantially and pervasively participated in setting policies central to the enterprise’s mission and personnel decisions.
- The Court declined to defer to the NLRB’s contrary determination, finding it inconsistent with the record and the Act’s policy distinction between management and labor.
- A dissent argued faculty influence reflected professional judgment within a collegial setting, while real managerial control remained with administrators and trustees, and that the NLRB’s expert judgment deserved deference.

## Legal Principles

- “Managerial employees” are excluded from NLRA protections when they formulate and effectuate management policies by making operative the employer’s decisions, even if the statute does not expressly list that exclusion.
- Professional employees may still be managerial; professional status does not bar a finding of managerial exclusion when the employees meaningfully participate in policy formation and implementation.
- In assessing managerial status in a university, substantial faculty control over core academic policy and effective influence over key personnel decisions can support classification as managerial.
- NLRB determinations receive respect, but courts may reject them where the agency’s characterization conflicts with the functional realities shown by the record and the Act’s management–labor separation.
- Any expansion of NLRA coverage to include employees deemed managerial is for Congress, not courts, to implement.

## Conclusion

The Court held that full-time private university faculty who exercise substantial authority over central academic policies and whose personnel recommendations are largely implemented act as managerial employees and therefore fall outside the NLRA’s collective bargaining protections, barring the NLRB from compelling bargaining with their union.


N.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva Univ., 444 U.S. 672 (1980)