The National Labor Board of Relations decision released today will have far-reaching consequences for private universities and colleges. The decision promises to be a potential source of litigation and headaches for college administrators regardless of whether student employees on campus choose to organize.

In Columbia University, a 3-1 board majority held that graduate and undergraduate research and teaching assistants were employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and that there were no policy reasons to deny them collective bargaining rights.