At 05:57 2/11/98 -0600, valis wrote: >Ajit brought up the interesting question of whether foreign grad >students will get the short straw if/when TAs gain legal employee >status after the coming militancy. The campus scene would surely >be impoverished, socially as well as intellectually, if foreign >grad students were always dashing off somewhere to cover their >expenses with illegal McJobs. Well, it may be that TA work will >incongruously join hotel, bar and restaurant jobs, the officially >winked-at "holes in the dike" that enable low-skill foreigners to >get started here. Is some more elegant solution in the works? ___________ My point was even more serious. The foreign students (unless they are from very rich families) will not even get a chance to come to US and try the McJobs. Since foreign students come on F1 visa called student visa. Usually people like us get such visa by showing the promise of teaching assistantships, which assures the US govt. that we will not join the begging line. In the absence of TAships, visa will definitely be denied. On the other hand universities may not be able to offer TAships to foreign citizens because it may entail getting a green card, and for that purpose they will have to convience the immigration dept. that they could not find anyone equally qualified for the job at home, which would be a very hard thing to do at that level of qualification. So I think its legal ramification should be seriously thought through by the movement. It is important for US intellectual culture to keep the shutters open for foreign students. Cheers, ajit sinha _____ >And, speaking of incongruities, why is it the UAW that's going to >give the TAs material strike support? Is this not very much like >the corporate practice of entering totally unrelated market areas? > valis > >
