To MIT graduate students,
As you may know, the MIT Graduate Student Union and United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (MIT GSU-UE) has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to add graduate students on MIT fellowships to their current bargaining unit. (These are fellowship students who do not also have partial research assistant (RA), teaching assistant (TA), or Instructor G appointments.)
MIT has received a subpoena from the NLRB which requires the Institute to provide certain information about our graduate student fellows to the NLRB and the MIT GSU-UE. We are writing to provide notice of this subpoena, as well as to explain some important points about MIT’s disclosure obligations:
- The subpoena stems from the NLRB process initiated by the MIT GSU-UE last week. The subpoena requests a range of information, including both directory information (such as students’ names) and non-directory information (such as students’ appointment type). Some of this information must be provided by October 11.
- MIT must release information for all students in the MIT GSU-UE’s proposed bargaining unit, even if the student has requested that their directory information be kept private for privacy, safety, or other reasons. The MIT GSU-UE will be able to use graduate students’ personal information – including home addresses and telephone numbers – as part of their petition.
- The information sought by the NLRB subpoena constitutes students’ “education records” under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(2) and 34 C.F.R. Part 99), a federal law that protects the privacy of student records. MIT is providing this notice consistent with FERPA and MIT’s policy on the privacy of student records.
If you have concerns about your information being shared, you will need to take protective action, which may include initiating a separate court action.
For more detail about the subpoena and MIT’s disclosure obligations, please visit the Notice of subpoena requiring MIT to share graduate student information with NLRB and MIT GSU-UE. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to gradunionquestions@mit.edu.
