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.