The university sent dismissal letters to 54 teaching assistants who have been engaged in a months-long dispute over pay.

The students’ union and the university could not reach an agreement on salary, health benefits, and harassment protections.

After a series of appeals from the university, Missouri courts have ruled for the third time that students have collective bargaining rights.

The National Labor Relations Board has gone back-and-forth on whether graduate students at private universities can form unions three times in the past 19 years.

Observers expect that the National Labor Relations Board will reverse an Obama-era determination that graduate students are employees entitled to form unions.

More than 2,000 individuals favor the bargaining unit—the first at a private university in the US.

Administration officials contend that research and teaching assistants are students, not workers, and want to take the matter to federal court.

The decision affects about 5,000 graduate students at the university who are eligible to join the union.

Student workers seek voluntary recognition of their unions by university administrators out of concern that political appointees may deny their unions legal status.