COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – The University of Missouri says graduate students have no rights to collective bargaining in response to a lawsuit from a group seeking to form a union.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that attorney Michael Kaemmerer says that even if they do have that right, they are doing it wrong. The assertions were made in a brief filed last week in Boone County Circuit Court. The filing was the university’s official response to a lawsuit filed May 11 by the Coalition of Graduate Workers.

The group is asking the court to order the four-campus University of Missouri system to recognize that graduate assistants are workers with bargaining rights protected by the Missouri Constitution. They also want UM to honor a vote held in April selecting the coalition as their union.