Cornell grad students say union targeted their Jewish faith in EEOC complaint

Two Jewish graduate students at Cornell University have filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against their campus union and its national affiliate on anti-discrimination charges and violations of religious freedom. 

Louie Gold and David Rubinstein say they were targeted for refusing to pay union dues because of deeply held religious views. On June 19, they filed against the Cornell Graduate Student Union (CGSU) and the United Electrical (UE), the union that oversees CGSU, arguing that the groups violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 

Furthermore, the students argue that instead of honoring their legal right to opt out for religious considerations, the union officials targeted them by illegally subjecting them to what they describe as invasive questioning.

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Rubinstein and Gold state that the union sent them a detailed questionnaire that asked to “include the name and address of the organization sponsoring the [religious] services you attend and the name of the faith leader(s),” and “How long have you had your religious belief?” 

The form indicated that the students’ religious objection may not even be accepted, stating that, “The UE national union will review your religious objection upon receipt and may have follow-up questions.”

Represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Rubinstein and Gold allege the union’s actions were also politically motivated. 

“Both nationwide and on the Cornell campus, the UE, CGSU, and their other campus affiliates have been at the forefront of demonizing Israel, seeking its destruction, and supporting Hamas’s violent and barbaric terrorism against Israel and its inhabitants,” the charges say, according to National Right to Work.

“The unions had no objective or bona-fide reasons to doubt the basis for my accommodation request or to question my sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, and practices,” it continues.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination, including on the basis of religion and provides that objectors must only describe a sincerely held religious belief objection to union affiliation. 

Prior legal cases brought forward by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have shown that students could also opt to instead pay such money to charities of their choice.

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In a statement provided to Campus Reform, Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, denounced the UE’s “radical political agenda.”

“Time and time again, the NLRB’s decision to approve union monopoly bargaining in academia has proven to be a disaster,” he noted. 

”By letting officials of the most radical unions impose their ‘representation’ on graduate students academic freedom has been under constant attack as students who have legitimate religious, political, and moral objections to union activity are threatened with losing their academic work if they refuse to subsidize union activity with their dues payments,” Semmens continued.

Referring to a related instance at MIT from last year, Semmens said that “it is becoming obvious that UE union bosses are more interested in pursuing their own radical political agenda than respecting the rights of those they claim to ‘represent.’”

Campus Reform has contacted Cornell University and the Cornell Graduate Student Union for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.