NLRB v. Yeshiva University

Supreme Court of the United States · 1980 · Labor Law

444 U.S. 672 (1980)

Updated August 1, 2026

Labor Lawmanagerial employeesNLRAuniversity facultycollective bargainingprofessional employeesalignment with managementeffective recommendation

Facts

Yeshiva University is a private university with a central administration and substantially autonomous schools. At the school level, full-time faculty met through formal and informal bodies and effectively determined curriculum, grading, admissions and matriculation standards, academic calendars, and course schedules. Faculty also made recommendations in every case of hiring, tenure, sabbaticals, termination, and promotion, and the overwhelming majority of those recommendations were implemented by the administration. In some instances faculty also made final decisions about student admission, expulsion, and graduation, and at times their views determined matters such as tuition, enrollment levels, and the location of a school.

Issue

Whether Yeshiva University's full-time faculty are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act as managerial employees. More specifically, the question was whether faculty who exercise extensive authority in academic and personnel matters are managerial even though they are also professional employees and the university's trustees retain ultimate authority.

Rule

Managerial employees are those who formulate and effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the decisions of their employer. An employee may be excluded as managerial when he represents management interests by taking or recommending discretionary actions that effectively control or implement employer policy; final authority in a board of trustees does not defeat managerial status, and professional judgment does not prevent an employee's decisions from being managerial.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Lakeview Conservatory, a private music college in Chicago, allows its full-time faculty senate to set degree requirements, audition standards, grading policies, and concert calendar rules for each school. The provost formally approves faculty recommendations on tenure, promotion, and hiring, and in practice follows them in nearly every case.

If the faculty seek to unionize under the NLRA, which is the strongest argument that they are excluded from the Act?

Explanation. Managerial employees are those who formulate and effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the employer's decisions. Faculty are managerial when they effectively control core academic policy and their discretionary recommendations on personnel matters are routinely implemented. Final authority in administrators or trustees does not defeat managerial status, and collective action does not prevent it.