On Friday, the John Locke Foundation joined 16 other state public policy research organizations in a “friend of the court” brief to the US Supreme Court in Friedricks v. California Teachers Association. Proceedings began in 2013 when Rebecca Friedricks and other California teachers filed a complaint challenging a state law requiring them to pay fees to the teachers union even though they are not members and even though they disagree with the policies it advocates. Lower courts rejected the teachers’ challenge on the basis of Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Education, a case in which the Supreme Court held that while forcing teachers to join unions and pay union dues would violate their rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech, forcing them to pay “agency fees” to those unions is permissable as long as the fees are used to cover the costs of collective bargaining and administration rather than for political advocacy. Ms. Friedricks and her fellow petitioners are asking the Supreme Court to overturn that holding.