employee status." The New York Times said the Region 2 decision "lays the groundwork to overturn the 2004 ruling," and other media outlets agreed. NYU graduate students later filed a petition to overturn Brown University, which the NLRB agreed to review in 2012. The case was withdrawn in 2013, however, in an agreement with the university to regain union recognition. Two new petitions seeking to overturn Brown University were filed at the NLRB by the graduate student unions of Columbia University and The New School on December 17, 2014. Recently, the NLRB has ruled research assistants at private, but university-affiliated, research centers for SUNY and CUNY are permitted to unionize. Post-Columbia era (2016–present) On August 23, 2016, the NLRB reversed the 2004 Brown decision and ruled that student assistants are protected by the NLRA. Columbia was followed by a resurgence of graduate students calling for elections, with eight schools winning graduate union recognition votes since the decision. Unionization attempts since Columbia have been characterized by rapid establishment at the onset, followed by extensive internal challenges by the universities at which they are formed. This reversal of Board case law has led to recent challenges within the administrations of higher-ed institutions. Nine universities, including Brown University, filed an amicus brief in 2016 in the challenge to the Columbia decision opposing graduate student unionization and the classification of graduate students as employees. In the brief, these universities argued that doing so would impinge on the academic freedoms of the university. University administrations have undertaken substantial measures to oppose unionization on their campuses. Causes of unionization Academic student unionization is seen by some academics as a response to the growing corporatization of universities. Many graduate students and union officers actively critique privatization of the academy and point to privatization of the university as a major factor in choosing to unionize. Unionization has also been attributed to increased teaching workloads and financial difficulties imposed on graduate students, as since the 1970s universities have transferred more instruction tasks from tenure track faculty to adjunct faculty and graduate students as cost saving measures. This is also in combination with the increased tuition and higher cost of living, the prospect of having to pay off an increasing loan debt, and poor job opportunities. Graduate students became more inclined to recognize themselves as employees, and turned towards unionization to better demand bread and butter issues such as increased