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The Supreme Court appeared sympathetic to arguments on Monday that First Amendment rights are violated when non-union state employees are required to pay agency fees to state unions, a precedent that has been in place since the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. During Monday’s hearing of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the Court’s liberal justices noted that the plaintiffs have not presented enough evidence to overturn a long-standing precedent, but it seemed likely that the conservative majority, which had already expressed skepticism in 2012 and 2014, appeared closer to overturning the decades-old ruling. Justice Antonin Scalia, previously supportive of pro-fee arguments, expressed doubt that fees were necessary to union longevity. Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in close decisions, expressed concern that the current system, where teachers are being forced to subsidize union policies that they may disagree with, creates ‘a whole class of persons whose speech has been silenced." He also noted that collective bargaining negotiations could not be separated from controversial public policy decisions.