arbitrator: UMass international student fee is discriminatory

[Bill McBlueState]

From the Daily Hampshire Gazette:

AMHERST - An arbitrator has ruled that it is discriminatory for the University of Massachusetts to levy a $65-per-semester fee on graduate students from foreign countries.

The binding decision applies to an estimated 1,000 international students who work as graduate teaching and research assistants. Hundreds of them have refused to pay the fee, a move UMass said would put them in bad academic standing and leave them liable to being deported under the USA Patriot Act.

''This is a major victory vindicating the civil rights of international student employees,'' said Jennifer Turner, a history graduate student and president of the Graduate Employee Organization, in a telephone interview Friday. ''We're thrilled with it.''

In June, the students got backing from the Amherst Town Meeting, which voted to urge Chancellor John Lombardi to find other funding sources for international programs.

more at http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/cspstory.cfm?id_no=8140062

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This is great news for international grad students at UMass, and an important victory for the graduate union. :toast:
It's also a blow against the Patriot Act, if you want to extrapolate a bit.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Patriot Act, perhaps, but....

I think that only makes sense to have a fee, even if it is tiny. I don't see how the fee is any different from charging out of state students a higher tuition than in-state students. The concept is that resident of that state help pay the costs of attending the school through their taxes, and therefore, the tuition is lower. Out-of-state students compensate for that with higher tuition. Similarly, every state college in the U.S. gets some of its funding from the federal government. Every U.S. citizen pays part of that with their taxes. Foreign students, however, do not. If it were to follow along the lines of in/out of state tuition, I don't see a problem with an additional fee for foreign students.

[Bill McBlueState]

2. then any extra charge should reflect that

If there's an extra fee for non-US taxpayers, it should be part of the non-US tuition, and the amount of the fee should be equal to the per-student federal funding. I'm not sure what "per-student federal funding" would be. Various programs receive federal grants, but I'm not aware of any federal money that directly subsidizes lower tuition in the way that state money does.

At any rate, this particular fee was charged without any debate or notice, against international students who are already pretty heavily nickled and dimed in a variety of ways by the university and the government. The money went to support a specific university office whose services are not used exclusively by international students.

A more appropriate analogy, perhaps, would be if disabled students were required to pay extra to bring the university into ADA compliance. Or if only athletes had to pay a special fee to build a new arena.

[Bill McBlueState]

3. updated info

The University has agreed to eliminate the international student fee for *all* international students, not just graduate union members. This is being described as "total victory" for the union and UMass's international students.

From the Springfield Republican:

AMHERST - The University of Massachusetts will comply with an arbitrator's decision and eliminate the $65 international student fee the Graduate Employee Organization has been fighting since the fall.

An arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association ruled two weeks ago the fee was discriminatory and ordered the university to stop charging the fee to graduate student employees and to refund the per-semester fee to students who had already paid it. The university announced yesterday it has decided not to appeal the ruling.

"While we disagree with the conclusion reached by the arbitrator, we respect the process of arbitration and will comply with the arbitrator's decision," said Chancellor John V. Lombardi in a prepared statement. "As a matter of fairness, we also decided that we should take an additional step and end the fee for all international students."

more at http://www.masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-5/109307449380412.xml?nnae