"Classism" is defined by Webster's Dictionary as "prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular socioeconomic class." This College, in all of its endeavors to make itself a symbol of equality, with all of its tirades against the perceived epidemics of hate crimes, with all of its attempts to finally triumph over its sexism, has overlooked one of its most atrocious anathemas -- its blatant classism.
Over the past term, I have been applying to all of the jobs that meet my criteria of qualifications for a "good" job: resume builder, non-hectic work environment, decent pay. I have applied to nearly every circulation desk job, every information desk job, every other library job and even jobs at the computer help desk. Instead of employing me, a former Capitol Hill intern who is nearly A+ certified in technology skills, they employ people with less impressive skills and less experience. They employ them because the College makes it more lucrative with the work-study program. It is now in its best interest, financially, to hire the less qualified work-study applicant than the middle-class student with qualifications.
All that is left for me, and the members of my socioeconomic class, are odd-jobs from the community, non-paying jobs from the faculty and jobs with strenuous labor and little pay. I do not think that it is fair that I lower my standards of employment merely because my parents make a certain amount of money. Are we really to feed off of the scraps of the federal work-study program's select elite merely because of our parents' income? Our parents' income and the job opportunities available to us not only seem unrelated, but also if anything, evince the fact that the school has constructed a counterintuitive and counter-logical relationship. If meddling is unavoidable, the school should encourage students from upper-middle class backgrounds to leave their comfort zone of wealth and become part of the working force. Instead, it chooses to discourage work by doling out the best jobs to those who may or may not deserve them, regardless of their qualifications.
It is an unfair, meddling, liberal idea, that despite its good intentions (like many liberal programs), is failing free market capitalism and ripping a schism into student body unity. By constructing a wall, selecting the elite and then deciding that the elite should be given an unfair advantage to those of slightly wealthier parents is akin to any type of sexism, classism or even racism. It gives preferential treatment of one group to another based on facts that the prospective person in question cannot control. Although the idea of work-study is a beautiful one that aims to help those who need it and would be beneficial to the community, it exceeds its bounds and thus its usefulness when it fails to establish a balance between need and merit. The work-study program at this school is pernicious in that it goes so far in helping those who are below an arbitrary threshold of income that it actually crushes, stifles and oppresses those who are above that arbitrary number.
In effect, it doles out jobs to those on a need-based system rather than a merit-based system -- a communistic idea. It arrogantly assumes that because a student's parents make a certain amount of money, he must not ever need to work because he also must be spoiled and given everything. In most cases this simply is not true. And for those for whom that isn't true, they are left stranded by the confines of their parents' budgets and abandoned by the flawed system of Jobnet and the student employment office of the College. In effect, this isn't an argument for work-study unfairness or employment biases, but for the merit-based foundations of capitalism.
I ask for more job opportunities for students not partaking in the work-study program, and that the employer considers applicants on an even playing field. We can all agree that equality is highly valued on this campus. By considering students as equals in areas beyond their control, we can tear down one more wall.
