Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, NLRB NEWS—In advice memo, NLRB instructs regions to follow Bethany College, says Edward Waters University is religious institution, (Jul 11, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

In mid-June, the Executive Secretary’s Office of the NLRB informed the Region 12 Regional Director that it had dismissed the complaint and charge in the matter.

Last year, the NLRB filed a complaint against Edward Waters University, an HBCU, after the school ended a 20-plus year contract with its faculty union, withdrawing its recognition of the employees’ exclusive bargaining unit representative certified by the NLRB. In its letter to faculty, included as an exhibit in the NLRB’s case records, the university wrote: “The assertion of the University's rights as a religious educational institution, acknowledged by the Supreme Court of the United States and the National Labor Relations Board, will allow EWU to be driven by its faith-based Christian mission, rather than the political agendas often associated with federal labor policies.”

In April, the university moved to dismiss the NLRB’s complaint. The region resubmitted the case and, in a memo, the NLRB’s Division of Advice now concludes that “EWU is a religious institution under the Bethany College test as applied in Saint Leo University Inc., 373 N.L.R.B. No. 121 (2024), and is therefore exempt from the Act’s coverage.” In Bethany College, the Board had determined that the exercise of jurisdiction over religious schools in matters involving faculty members impermissibly infringed on religious freedoms.

In addition to telling the region to withdraw the complaint and dismiss the charge, it also states that all regions “should no longer seek to overturn the Board’s decision in Bethany College” and that, instead, they “should apply Bethany and the Board’s more recent decision in Saint Leo when considering whether the Board should exercise its jurisdiction over learning institutions with any religious affiliation.”

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