GESO's legal rights: a clarification

To the Editor:

In "Graduate students spring Administration leak" [11/19/98, YH], I was misinterpreted when I supposedly called the students' claims "legally farfetched." I do not think they are. I did say that it was "at best ambiguous" whether graduate students had legal rights to organize or not, but I meant "at best" from the Administration's point of view.

As my other comments indicated, I see graduate students as having moved more and more into part-time employee status, and thus having acquired a stronger and stronger case for legal rights to unionize over the last 20 years.

Also, I ended that part of my comments by urging faculty and administrators to treat graduate students as people who are exercising what are arguably their legal rights, a status that means their claims should be treated more respectfully than has sometimes been the case in the past.

I'm afraid that the article's characterization of my comments points in exactly the wrong direction. Perhaps I was insufficiently clear; if so, I hope this letter better states my view.

--Rogers Smith,
professor of political science

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