Trump & Control of Admin. Agencies: The Firing of NLRB Comm'r Gwynne Wilcox

On November 18, Gwynne Wilcox will join Dan Silverman at Cardozo to discuss her lawsuit against Trump and his administration for firing her as an NLRB commissioner. This conversation will be moderated by Professor David Rudenstine.

On January 27, 2025, President Trump removed Wilcox from the Board prior to her term’s expiration in 2028. Wilcox was the first Board Member to have been removed in 90 years of the Board's inception in 1935. Wilcox filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in Washington, DC, against President Trump challenging her unprecedented and unlawful termination based upon current statutory law and well-established Supreme Court precedent. The termination is unlawful under a 1930's SCOTUS decision that this court seems determined to overrule. Her case is still pending.

A reception in the Lobby will follow the panel.

Gwynne Wilcox was renominated by President Biden and reconfirmed by the Senate on September 6, 2023 to serve a second term as a Board Member of the National Labor Relations Board ending August 27, 2028. Wilcox previously served as a Member of the Board from August 4, 2021 until August 27, 2023, and she served as Chair of the Board from December 17, 2024 to January 20, 2025. Wilcox is the first Black woman to serve on the Board since its inception in 1935, and is also the first Black woman to serve as Chair of the NLRB. Previous to her appointment to the Board, Wilcox was a senior partner at Levy Ratner, P.C., a New York City labor and employment law firm. While there, she served as a labor representative to the NYC Office of Collective Bargaining. Prior to joining Levy Ratner, she worked as a Field Attorney at Region 2 of the NLRB in Manhattan under the leadership of former Regional Director Daniel Silverman. Wilcox holds a J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law-Newark and a B.A. from Syracuse University.

Dan Silverman holds a J.D. and LL.M. (labor law) from New York University. After graduation, he began a career at the National Labor Relations Board where he worked for 32 years holding positions of Trial Attorney in Pittsburgh, Assistant General Counsel in Washington, Regional Director in New York and Acting General Counsel on an appointment by President Clinton. He co-authored the book Winning at the NLRB and as Regional Director handled many prominent cases, some most notably in baseball which involved free agency, strikes, and lockout. Also as Regional Director, he had the opportunity to hire some wonderful attorneys, one of whom was Gwynne Wilcox. Silverman taught labor law at Cardozo for 15 years.

David Rudenstine is an American legal scholar and the Sheldon H. Solow Professor of Law at Cardozo School of Law, where he served as the Dean from 2001-2009 and has taught constitutional law since 1979. He is a prominent legal voice on issues of free speech, freedom of the press, national security and terrorism. In addition to his scholarly articles in law journals, his published books include The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case(University of California 1996) and The Age of Deference: The Supreme Court, National security, and the Constitutional Order (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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