Clark University denies that their stance on undergraduate unionization has anything to do with politics. I don’t buy that. 

According to a recent article published in The Scarlet, the undergraduate workers’ union is claiming that Clark’s stance against unionization amounts to “siding with the Trump administration.” The evidence: the University’s response to the union’s election petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal authority which enforces labor laws. 

In the response to the undergraduate workers’ petition for unionization, Clark’s lawyers offered several arguments to oppose the unionization effort. Most were boilerplate. But one stood out: that the workers in question “do not constitute an appropriate unit for collective bargaining” because of previous rulings by the NLRB, which had been overturned in 2016, in a case regarding student workers at Columbia University. 

Clark’s legal representation claimed that the Columbia decision, which re-extended the right to union representation to student workers at private universities for the first time since 2004, was made “wrongly.” 

Undergraduate workers at Clark identified the veiled threat immediately. Clark’s lawyers were implying that if a unionization vote went ahead, they would push for the NLRB to re-examine its 2016 ruling. Now controlled by the shamelessly anti-labor Trump administration, the Board would almost certainly overturn ‘Columbia.’ If that were to happen, more than 50,000 graduate and undergraduate student workers nationwide would lose their right to union representation. That includes the graduate student workers here at Clark, who won their contract with the Teamsters in 2022 after a five-day strike. 

The threat to workers across the United States was enough for the Teamsters, who are representing the undergraduates as well, to withdraw their petition to the NLRB on February 28. It is because of that threat that the union is now striking for card check neutrality, a process which would lead to union negotiations not overseen by the NLRB, protecting ‘Columbia’ from re-examination.

Shortly after the petition was withdrawn, the University sent an email to parents addressing the situation. “Some have suggested that the University took this position (opposing unionization) because of the national political dynamic,” the email reads. “That is simply not true,” it continues, claiming that Clark would have made the same argument whether or not Trump had been elected. 

Well, what about three years ago, when graduate workers negotiated for a union while President Joe Biden was in office? Did the University claim that ‘Columbia’ was wrongly decided then, too?

I asked two Teamsters familiar with the matter, and both independently confirmed to me that in 2022, the University made no such claim.

There’s a good reason: at that time, the NLRB probably would not have issued a new rule to overturn ‘Columbia.’ I challenge the University to show otherwise, and welcome being proven wrong. Until that time, let’s be clear: Clark is positioning itself to benefit from the current political climate. 

That’s not uniquely ‘bad.’ It’s a winning strategy. Brown University benefitted from George W. Bush’s administration in 2004, which led to the revocation of the same right student workers enjoy again now, thanks to the 2016 Columbia rule, made during Barack Obama’s tenure. Now, in 2025, Clark – and other private universities opposed to unionization – are benefitting from the second, anti-labor administration of Donald Trump.