I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress

to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.

On January 11th, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one of the most important First Amendment cases of the current term,

Friedrichs versus California Teachers Association.

That case asks whether public sector employees can be required to

support the bargaining activities of a union they may not agree with. Joining me to discuss the

constitutional issues in Friedrichs and to predict how the court will

rule are two of the leading scholars in this area who have written thoughtfully on different

sides of this important case.

Catherine Fisk is Chancellor's Professor of Law

at the University of California Irvine School of Law,

and David Forte is Professor of Law

at the Cleveland State University Marshall College of Law.

Catherine, David, thank you so much for being here.

It's a pleasure.

We are pleased to be here.

Wonderful. Well, let us jump right in.

Catherine, can you tell our listeners briefly

the facts of the Friedrichs case

and what the basic constitutional issue is?

Friedrichs is a case brought by several California public school teachers challenging a

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