Wage Discrimination at App State. In the name of “diversity,” the UNC-System institution may have violated federal law.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | April 3, 2023 | Graham Hillard

[karpov]

Shortly after our February report on DEI activity at Appalachian State University, the Martin Center received a tip from a concerned App State employee. According to this faculty member (who has requested anonymity), App State has been paying many of its “diverse” graduate assistants a higher hourly wage than its “non-diverse” grad students receive. This pay disparity, our source maintained, was neither accidental nor informal but part of a longstanding, written policy in App State’s Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies.

To support this claim, our source provided the following chart, which seems to indicate that rates of pay for “diverse” and “non-diverse” graduate assistants have indeed diverged since at least the 2016-17 academic year. (The red column borders are a Martin Center addition.)

As the reader will note, the standard hourly rate of pay for all traditional graduate assistants in 2011-12 was $13.33 or $15.00, depending on the size of one’s total stipend. For grad students in the special Graduate Research Assistant Mentoring (GRAM) program, the hourly rate of pay was $18.33, in keeping with the separate status and duties associated with that program.

So far, so good, as there is obviously nothing wrong with paying graduate assistants different hourly rates based on merit (in this case, competitive fellowships and programs). The problem begins, as previously stated, in 2016-17, with the introduction of a special “Diversity Rate of Pay Per Hour” column.

Perusing that column, one finds that at least some “diverse” graduate students received an hourly pay rate of $15.00, despite the fact that many of their “non-diverse” colleagues worked for $13.33 per hour. By the 2022-23 academic year, the “diversity” hourly rate had increased to $20.00, outpacing both of the standard pay rates awarded to “non-diverse” graduate students.

[Cowgirl of Justice]

The person/people who made this decision to create this racist pay scale should be publicly acknowledged and made to personally repay all of my tax money back to MY state that was used to enact racist pay scales OR to pay the non minority people who were shorted.

[9YearLurker]

Just pay that difference in a scholarship and they’re set.