Matt Tittle's Letter

[Paul A. Klanderud]

Matt raises a good question about the legality of this.  Who knows, it may
be legal -- but it sure isn't smart for a field that ought to be doing
everything it can to ensure that its own have a shot at employment.

People have heard this opera from me before, but if you want the best and
the brightest, at least give them some semblance of a chance of employment
in the field in which most of them want to continue.

Paul Klanderud


>A question for the list that I have wondered about for some time.
>
>Is it legal for a job description to designate that a candidate must be
>a "native" speaker of the language to be taught (as with the Rutgers
>position posted today)?  My intent isn't to spark a discussion of the
>definition of "native," but I think it implies that the employer is
>looking only for a candidate whose first and dominant language is
>Russian (in this case).  This severly limits the applicant pool and
>seems to be a form of ethnic or nationality discrimination.  I thought
>that was why most positions say "native" or "near-native" proficiency,
>so that there was no discrimination based on nationality.
>
>Are the rules on this clear or vauge?
>
>Matt Tittle

, Ph.D. Student
>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>Department of Educational Psychology
>Program in Second Language Acquisition & Teacher Education
>tittle at uiuc.edu
>