To the Editor:
I would like to call attention to a policy held by many employers at Dartmouth which I feel to be a contradiction of the College's policy of Equal Opportunity, as well as an abuse in spirit of federal grant money.
Namely, the common non-acceptance of applications for employment from students who are not eligible for federal work-study subsidies.
Under the federal program, Dartmouth receives "a grant from the federal government for the purpose of subsidizing part-time and full-time jobs for financial aid recipients" (Student Handbook, p. 77), which normally covers 85 percent of the minimum College wage.
The intent of the program is to encourage the creation of jobs as a means of aid to students of financial need. In practice, many departments at the College use the work-study program as their primary source of funding for jobs that are in many cases quite essential to the operation of those departments.
Rather than create jobs to aid students, many departments at the College depend on federal student aid for their normal operation.
As a result of this, students not eligible for work-study are routinely denied access to positions of employment at Dartmouth, even in specialized jobs such as teaching assistantships, in which there may be a marked disparity in qualification among various applicants.
In my opinion, this practice contradicts the College's policy of Equal Opportunity, in which the College affirms a commitment "to the principle of equal opportunity for all its students, faculty, employees, and applicants of admission and employment" (Student Handbook, p. iii).
Admittedly, the hiring of non-work-study students may not have been what the College had in mind when it adopted this policy; however, it is also true that an easily-identifiable group of students is clearly being denied equal opportunity in the College's hiring practices.
I call upon the College administration to reconsider these practices and for members of the Student Assembly to address this issue in a formal context.
