Experience Need not Apply

by Alison E. Jeffe

All but one of the College’s technical maintenance employees are white males—a fact so lamented by official Dartmouth that the hire of Claire Walton, Dartmouth’s only female locksmith, received front-page billing in the Daily Dartmouth last August.

Beyond the College’s one female hire, racial diversity has yet to creep into the skilled trades staff. Thus, homogeneity remains and Dartmouth’s administration projects a future no different from the present without its intervention. Forever conscious of its white-male-dominated image, the College seeks to transform its employee statistics with an apprenticeship program. The College has undertaken a new effort to open two new technical jobs, one of which will be reserved for a woman or a member of an "underrepresented group." The College also promises to finance the new staff’s vocational training. Michelle Meyers, Associate Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, says that her office is not behind the new initiative, but "we support any program which will help women and minorities in the workplace."

Still, some Dartmouth students wonder whether Dartmouth may legally enlist new employees using racial or gender status as the primary criterion.

No, says Curt Levey, Director of Legal and Public Affairs at the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights, a public-interest law firm. Civil rights law prohibits Dartmouth from hiring anyone under such guidelines. "If they are doing this for the sake of diversity or the right mix of skin color it is illegal according to the law," Levy points out. "If they say it is to remedy past discrimination, that is different, but the College would probably be too cowardly to admit to that." Only under certain limited circumstances may a business or institution hire personnel on the basis of race or sex, explains Levy. Such an action is permissible only to rectify past discrimination, or to employ a representational sample of the qualified applicant pool.

It does not seem likely that Dartmouth would admit to previous discrimination against women and minorities in its hiring practices. And the College has already conceded that the applicant pool for the skilled trades is overwhelmingly white and male—hence the training program. So Dartmouth’s new employment drive may be illegal.

Geographic location impedes Dartmouth’s obtaining a very diverse staff of skilled employees. However, choosing people to fill jobs on the basis of gender or race is sexist or racist from a legal standpoint, certainly not something to be proud of. It is strange that the College finds value in publicizing a hiring quota of questionable legality.

In 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Texas at Austin Law School as unconstitutional and impermissible, holding that diversity is not a compelling government interest and cannot justify racial discrimination in university admissions. Presumably, the educational benefits of minority carpenters and locksmiths on campus will be even more difficult to establish.

One would think that an individual hired to fill a quota—not by merit—would not feel entitled to the job and resent such a hiring standard. "I don't expect them to treat me any differently," Walton told the Daily Dartmouth in August. "As long as the job is done well and done right they don't care if I'm a man or a woman." One should object to being hired on the basis of race for the same reason one would balk at being fired because of skin color. If the College is concerned with avoiding the appearance of unfairness, they should not impose diversity by force—that is, they should not replace an apparent unfairness with an actual one.

Now over a month after the program was announced, Dartmouth offices refuse to affirm that such a program really exists. Human Resources has an application for the new positions, yet apparently has no substantive information on the subject to offer. Regardless, many on campus are outraged. "To think that I had to work so hard to get into this college and someone else could get a job here based on something as superficial as appearance really upsets me and makes all my efforts seem in vain," says one Dartmouth freshman, who declined to be identified.

Once again, Dartmouth seems to believe mocking the notion of fairness is at the heart of success in creating the perfect college, untarnished and diverse, even if it is forced. Rather than accept job applications on the basis of merit, Dartmouth sees the situation much like that of their admissions process. The administration publicizes an image of progressivism by sacrificing a truly liberal ideal: reward by merit. A diverse group of Dartmouth workers would be nice, if a fair process happened to turn out that way. There are few who would ever see variety as an obstacle, but at what price does the college intend to secure such results?

A college which apparently is so concerned with its image should shy away from such a plan. Does Dartmouth really want to say that it is through the assertion of group power, rather than the development of individual talent, that one may succeed? In creating diversity, the college is jeopardizing its honor code; Dartmouth very well might be doing so illegally. The College on the Hill is not above the law. As educators, Dartmouth’s administrators teach respect for the law—and therefore they must abide by it or face hypocrisy. Racial discrimination is wrong, even with the "best" of Dartmouth intentions at heart.