The National Relations Labor Board ruled Tuesday that graduate students at Columbia qualify as employees of the institution and therefore have the right to unionize.

The 3-1 ruling comes more than a decade after a 2004 NLRB decision regarding Brown, which determined that graduate students — as students rather than employees — did not possess the right to unionize.  

This decision sets the precedent that graduate students in research or teaching capacities at private universities should be able to form and join unions and collectively bargain with university administrations.

The University joined eight other private universities in filing an amicus brief in March, pressing the NLRB to maintain its 2004 ruling that denies graduate students the rights of employees, The Herald reported.

Ruling this time in favor of graduate students, the NLRB now deems the constituency to be protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Tuesday’s decision states that the board’s former ruling regarding Brown “deprived an entire category of workers of the protections of the Act, without a convincing justification in either the statutory language or the policies of the Act.”

The reversal of the 2004 ruling comes from the NLRB’s current majority-Democrat members, the Wall Street Journal reported. The current board was appointed by President Barack Obama, while the previous decision was reached by a Bush-appointed Board.

Graduate students at public universities are protected by state labor laws, and this new ruling allows graduate students at private universities to join them, the Chicago Tribune reported.