The Chronicle of Higher Education assesses the chances that the NLRB's Brown decision would be overturned under a Kerry administration: It's possible. University administrators see the last four years as the aberration and argue that the NYU case was simply wrongly decided. Union leaders, however, maintain that the NYU decision was correct and returning to the previous precedent is out of touch with the current labor situation in academe. If the Republicans lose control of the White House, the majority control of the labor board would also switch. The board's five members are appointed to five-year terms, with one member's term expiring every year. The two Democrats currently on the board wrote a sharply worded dissent in this month's decision. "The developments that brought graduate students to the board will not go away, but they will have to be addressed elsewhere, if the majority's decision stands," they wrote. "That result does American universities no favors." Having decisions bounce back and forth from one administration to the next is not uncommon, says William B. Gould IV, a Democrat and former chairman of the board under President Clinton. He emphasizes that the board is a "quasi-judicial" agency whose members serve relatively short terms rather than lifetime appointments. "Congress has really placed its imprimatur on the idea of precedent reversal to a greater extent with the board than would be true in the judiciary," Mr. Gould says.