Posted on 10/26/2009 4:01:28 PM PDT by Ryde
Freepers: I occasionally work as an adjunct (I'm retired) for a local college. This college has just initiated a policy where they require their students to work for 75 hours for a third-party for free. That is, they require that a student give 75 hours of work to a non-profit, a charity, and so forth. The college will provide the list of organizations from which a student can choose. This strikes me as being pretty shaky legally and ethically. We seem to be providing a pool of unpaid labor for groups in our community--regardless of whether they want to work for free (which I am certainly opposed to.) The idea is supposedly to teach the students the value of serving others. Does any one out there have any comments or advice on this?
The return of the indentured servant.
These guys would know and help out:
“Foundation for Individual Rights in Education”
Yes they can, since your engagement with the college is voluntary.
It is no worse than making you buy books, laptops, pay for field trips etc.
I know you want to find some evil Constitutional Sacrilege here, but this ain’t it.
You need to understand the difference between the Government forcing people to do things against their will and people agreeing to give up their rights as part of a contract.
The imposition of Contract Law.
Rights cannot be given up as part of a contract. Where did you get that idea?
Well...since the Fed’s have taken over all public student loans....we can expect more of this type of baloney.
Service learning.
Community of practice.
Cohorts.
Let the waders commence wading.....
Is there course credit? If so, how does that work?
What college/university is this?
Are you receiving Government funding (i.e.: Staffords, etc.)?
Sure they can. Military personnel give up all sorts of rights when they sign their contract of enlistment. Non-disclosure, non-compete clauses are common in contracts. The list goes on. As long as the contract is voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
No, it's not right but then neither is Hussein making service mandantory. I remember back, many years ago, when my long time boss suddenly "expected" everyone donate a portion of their paycheck to the United Way. I refused on principal and it didn't sit well with him. The working environment changed and I left before the hammer fell.
Should be illegal unless it’s one of the tiny handful of US colleges that do not accept any federal financial aid, either directly or via student loans. That said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a court upheld it, on the grounds that colleges routinely require students to do all sorts of work without compensation, under the the guise of “homework” or “projects” — all theoretically essential to learning, but often nothing more than busy work.
Is the student newspaper making any noise about this? Has any student tried to select a legitimate organization not on the approved list (especially a non-leftist/liberal organization) and been turned down? I cannot see a court upholding this requirement if there’s clear political or religious bias in what organizations are eligible.
Name a right you give up by enlisting, keeping in mind what the definition of a right is.
It might work if the college correspondingly gave the students 75 “free” credit hours. As IF.
It would be better for the college if they rewarded students who volunteered on their own with better class scheduling, recognitions, etc... rather than playing to the lowest common denominator, but as long as the students can choose the charity/nonprofit they work for, I’m not against it. It’s actually not too uncommon to have high schools and college programs include some token community service requirement for graduation.
My one reservation would be if the list of potential service organizations was restricted to one agenda, or if there was no option for the student choosing another service org to volunteer at, with some sort of advisory approval.
Sign me up for 75 hours of work for the local Credit Bureau...
No, there are no credits given for this. I am told that once upon a time we did offer credits for service but that was done away with.
Yes, I would guess over 90 % of our funding is through one government entity or another.
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