''Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association'', 578 U.S. ___ (2016), is a

United States labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the US. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the " inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in ...

case that came before the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

. At issue in the case was whether ''

Abood v. Detroit Board of Education ''Abood v. Detroit Board of Education'', 431 U.S. 209 (1977), was a US labor law case where the United States Supreme Court upheld the maintaining of a union shop in a public workplace. Public school teachers in Detroit had sought to overturn t ...

''. (1977) should be overruled, with public-sector "

agency shop Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that s ...

" arrangements invalidated under the

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

, and whether it violates the First Amendment to require that public employees affirmatively object to subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions, rather than requiring employees to consent affirmatively to subsidizing such speech. Specifically, the case concerned public sector

collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and labour rights, rights for ...

by the

California Teachers Association The California Teachers Association (CTA) is a teachers' trade union based in the city of Burlingame, California. The association was initially established in 1863. It is regarded as one of the largest and most powerful teachers' unions in the st ...

, an affiliate of the

National Education Association The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college st ...

. Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

died shortly after the case was argued in front of the Supreme Court, leaving only eight members to decide the case. In the end, the result was a non-

precedent Precedent is a judicial decision that serves as an authority for courts when deciding subsequent identical or similar cases. Fundamental to common law legal systems, precedent operates under the principle of ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by thin ...

ial ''

per curiam In law, a ''per curiam'' decision or opinion (sometimes called an unsigned opinion) is one that is not authored by or attributed to a specific judge, but rather ascribed to the entire court or panel of judges who heard the case. The term is La ...

'' opinion affirming the lower-court decision by an equally-divided Supreme Court.. On June 28, 2016, the rehearing petition submitted by the

Center for Individual Rights The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) is a non-profit public interest law firm in the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm is "dedicated to the defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and unchecked autho ...

(CIR) was denied, letting the Ninth Circuit's decision stand as its final judgment.https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/062816zr_29m1.pdf In 2017, after regaining a ninth Justice, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a substantially similar case, ''

Janus v. AFSCME ''Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31'', 585 U.S. 878 (2018), abbreviated ''Janus v. AFSCME'', is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on US labor law, concerning the power of labor unions ...

''.

Background

In the 1977 case ''

'', the Supreme Court upheld the maintaining of a

union shop In labor law, a union shop, also known as a post-entry closed shop, is a form of a union security clause. Under this, the employer agrees to either only hire labor union members or to require that any new employees who are not already union mem ...

in a public workplace. Public school teachers in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

had sought to overturn the requirement that they pay fees equivalent to union dues on the grounds that they opposed public sector

and objected to the ideological activities of the union. The court affirmed that the union shop, which is legal in the private sector, is also legal in the public sector. They found that non-members may be assessed dues for "collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment purposes", but that objectors to union membership or policy may not have their dues used for other ideological or political purposes.

Initial lawsuit

The

(CIR), a conservative law firm which brought the Friedrichs case with funding from the

Bradley Foundation The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, commonly known as the Bradley Foundation, is an American charitable foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that has been one of the most influential funders of the conservative movement. The foundation ...

, initiated contact with the plaintiffs, ten public school teachers who had paid agency fees. The lead plaintiff, Orange County elementary teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, had previously served on her local union's executive committee.

Death of Antonin Scalia

Many legal commentators speculated that the death of Justice

would make the Court either divide evenly on the case, letting the

Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

's ruling stand against the plaintiffs but not setting a precedent, or call for reargument once Scalia's vacancy has been filled.

Decision

On March 29, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a one-line ''per curiam'' opinion affirming the Ninth Circuit; as a decision made by an equally-divided court, the case is not considered to set a legal precedent. The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) said it plans to ask the Supreme Court to reevaluate the case once a ninth justice has been appointed to replace Scalia. CIR's rehearing petition was ultimately denied on June 28, 2016. However, in 2017, after regaining a ninth Justice, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a substantially similar case, ''

''. In July 2020, Friedrichs was a guest on

Laura Ingraham Laura Anne Ingraham (; born June 19, 1963) is an American conservative television presenter. Gale Biography In Context. She has been the host of '' The Ingraham Angle'' on Fox News Channel since October 2017, and is the editor-in-chief of Li ...

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

program. Friedrichs, after saying how warmed she was by Ingraham's support of her anti-union verve, claimed that the pushback by unions over reopening classrooms is a "smokescreen" for "using our schools to sexualize our children and to train them in anti-American ideology." She also claimed that teachers' unions "are teaching our children to sext, to view pornography, nionsare hooking them up with online sex experts. So what they are doing is grooming our children for sexual predators to use them."

Legacy

Rebecca Friedrichs, the plaintiff, was a speaker at the 2020

Republican National Convention The Republican National Convention (RNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1856 by the Republican Party in the United States. They are administered by the Republican National Committee. The goal o ...

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, California, Education, Freedom of speech, Law, Organized labour, United States 2016 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases United States public employment case law United States Free Speech Clause case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court Tie votes of the United States Supreme Court National Education Association 2016 in labor relations