Dori Yates, et al. v. Hillsboro Unified School District, et al.

In Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, this Court held that public employees have a First Amendment right not to subsidize union speech. 138 S. Ct. 2448, 2486 (2018). The Court indicated that it violates the First Amendment for public employers to take employee wages and remit them to unions absent a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of First Amendment rights. Id Petitioners are public employees from Oregon who signed boilerplate union membership and dues’ authorization cards. After the Court handed down Janus, the Petitioners resigned their union memberships and revoked their authorizations for their public employers to withhold union payments from their wages. The respondent School District and Union refused to stop deducting union dues, stating that they would continue to do so until the month of June, the designated “escape-period” for stopping union deductions in the union’s standardized membership cards. The court below relied on Belgau v. Inslee, 975 F.3d 940 (9th Cir. 2020), in which the Ninth Circuit held government employers and unions need show only that the employee had agreed to be a member and had agreed to pay dues for a specified period of time as part of that membership agreement, in order to continue taking their money without affirmative consent. In other words, Belgau decided no First Amendment analysis is necessary – rendering Janus a dead letter. The questions presented for review are: 1. Do boilerplate union membership agreements supersede employees’ First Amendment rights when it comes to government unions taking employees’ money for union political speech? (i)