This opinion piece appeared in the St. Cloud Times.

As a political science professor at St. Cloud State University, for two decades I have been forced to financially support the university’s Inter Faculty Organization — the IFO — even though as a non-union faculty member the IFO doesn’t support me in return.

While the IFO claims to be the “exclusive representative” of my best interests, it undermines my ability to advance in my career and routinely interferes with my professional opportunities and relationships.

Although I have declined to join the IFO since coming to campus 20 years ago because I do not share its political agenda and many of its stated goals and objectives, Minnesota law empowers the IFO to speak officially on “my” behalf by forcing me to accept its exclusive representation.

Using that power, the union has subjected me, and others like me, to an illegal caste system — one under which the union negotiated me out of the ability to join university and faculty committees that are important to my career and to my full participation in my career. University governance is reserved for union members and union viewpoints. Minnesota law forces me to accept representation by the very entity that excludes me. I do not want it.

The Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision in Janus v. AFSCME held that forcing me to pay for this harmful representation violates my First Amendment rights.

Now I no longer have to pay for the privilege of being mistreated and misrepresented by the union, but I am still forced to accept its representation of me — and its continued discrimination against me. Thus, in the days following the Janus decision, I chose to work with The Buckeye Institute to challenge Minnesota’s unconstitutional law and the IFO’s illegal trampling of my free speech and association rights.

I did not make this decision lightly. I come from a blue collar, union family with a long tradition of union membership. My father was a truck driver in the Teamsters Union. My grandfather worked his entire life for General Motors as a card-carrying member of the autoworkers’ union. My husband and three generations of his family worked in unionized steel mills. As a student and teacher of American government and law, I am well aware of the valuable role that unions played in the lives of American workers and families.

Regrettably, however, unions like the IFO too often “represent” their members by taking advantage of and discriminating against non-members like me.

As public employees, union and non-union faculty members have the same job requirements and service criteria for promotion and tenure. But the union makes it much more difficult for non-union faculty to meet those professional requirements.

My non-union status prevents me, for instance, from working with students and administrators on search, service and governance committees or serving in the “union members only” Faculty Senate. This discrimination is not limited to my campus: I can’t serve on any Minnesota State System committee, either. And neither can any non-union faculty member across our seven campuses.

The IFO does not care about my strong interests in admissions, accreditation, strategic planning or curriculum building, nor has it ever shown concern for my professional resume or my desire to work in university administration. The only thing that matters to the union is whether I “paid” sufficiently for the ability to participate in the life of my university. Instead of including me and respecting my views and concerns, the union uses its “exclusive representation” to speak for me without my consent while it simultaneously does everything it can to silence me.

After 20 years, enough is enough. I am standing up for my rights. I am tired of unfair, unconstitutional and second-class treatment under the law. I am proud to team with The Buckeye Institute to argue that this discrimination and forced representation must end, this time in its entirety.

Whether I choose to allow a union to speak for me is my choice — not the union’s — and certainly not the state of Minnesota’s. After the Supreme Court’s courageous ruling in Janus, I am even more confident that the U.S. Constitution has my back, even if the IFO does not.

This is the opinion of Kathy Uradnik, a professor of political science at St. Cloud State University.