Depending upon their institution, faculty members in California are covered by a variety of laws. Faculty at public institutions fall under California's Education Code and California's Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA), while faculty at private universities and colleges may be subject to the National Labor Relations Act.

Yeshiva v. National Labor Relations Board In 1980, the United States Court of Appeals ruled in "Yeshiva" that faculty at Yeshiva University (a private institution) in New York were "managerial employees" and not, therefore, subject to the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. Since Yeshiva, institutional challenges to faculty members' rights to unionize under the NLRB have not generally been decided in favor of the faculty.

Although few court decisions have been rendered on the subject of faculty's intellectual property rights, some of the most prominent decisions (Weinstein and Hays posted below) of federal courts have followed traditional academic practice and found that faculty authors own copyright in their academic materials.

Weinstein v. University of Illinois (1987) discusses the longstanding tradition that higher education faculty own the copyrights in their academic work, as stated in Nimmer's Copyright treatise and elsewhere.

Hays v. Sony Corp. of America (1988) notes that, although college faculty do academic writing as part of their employment responsibilities and use employer facilities and resources to do so, "[a] college or university does not supervise its faculty in the preparation of academic books or articles, and is poorly equipped to exploit their writings, whether through publication or otherwise".

Cervisi v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. In 1989, the First Appellate Court of California ruled on the issue of part-time faculty's eligibility for unemployment benefits.

Pomona v. Regents In 1996, the "Pomona decision" ruled that the faculty handbook at Pomona College does not carry the weight of contract law.

Great Falls v. National Labor Relations Board In 2002, the District of Columbia United States Court of Appeals ruled in "Great Falls" that the constitutional separation of Church and State in such a way as to exempt employees of religiously affiliated institutions from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.

Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs In 2002, the US Supreme Court ruled that states are not immune under the "family leave" provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The FMLA allows employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick family member.

Irvine Valley College Academic Senate v. Board of Trustees In this 2003 decision, the court found that faculty at Irvine College had to be provided with "a real and meaningful opportunity to participate" in certain legislatively mandated tasks relating to shared governance. This decision recognizes California Community College Academic Senates as legal petitioners against local Boards of Trustees that violate the Education Code.

IBM Corp., 341 NLRB No. 148 (2004) In this decision, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that employees who work in a nonunionized workplace are not entitled to have a coworker accompany them to an interview with their employer, even if the affected employee reasonably believes that the interview might result in discipline. This decision applies only to employees in the private sector and effectively revokes the so-called Weingarten rights.

Kahle v. Ashcroft (2004) Ruling against the plaintiffs in this case, Judge Chesney found that earlier legislation did not radically alter the "traditional contours of copyright laws" in the protection of "orphan" works, such as out-of-print books, old films, and academic articles that have little or no commercial value.

Versaci v. Superior Court of San Diego County (2005) The court ruled that the personal performance goals of the college president were exempt under state law. It acknowledged that the disclosure of the president's performance goals "would allow the public to evaluate the trustees' performance in giving her satisfactory evaluations, raises, and contract extensions."

Irvine Valley College Academic Senate v. Board of Trustees of the South Orange County Community College District (2005) This case interprets the meaning of CA Education Code section 87360 as it relates to faculty hiring policy. It reinforces the 2003 decision in Irvine Valley College Academic Senate v. Board of Trustees (see above) by affirming that "the Legislature granted the Senates a role equal to the District's in developing and adopting faculty hiring policies."

Lynette M. Petruska v. Gannon University (2006) This decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a case involving a chaplain who accused Gannon University of discriminating against her because she’s a woman, represents a major break with legal precedent governing the law of religious colleges and faith-based institutions generally. The decision says that ministers or other religious officials may sue a religious college for employment discrimination if the institution’s reasons for taking the contested employment action are not grounded in “faith, doctrine, or internal regulation” of the church, a divided federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.