To President Beilock, Dean Kull, and Provost Kotz,

The general body of GOLD understands that the right to engage in a strike of labor is a fundamental right of workers. We take the defense of this right to be a serious and important matter. 

Nonetheless, retaliatory threats from Dartmouth management have made some of our most vulnerable members afraid for their livelihoods, careers, and even visa statuses. This is unacceptable. As members of a union we do not stand divided as individuals. Retaliation against any one of us is retaliation against us all, and we are committed to fighting for every last member of our unit. Retaliatory discipline against any single unit member for striking will always be met with a collective response. Even graduate students who are not currently part of the strike action nonetheless respect and support the rights of others to engage in a lawful strike. 

As the grading system currently exists, “low passes” (LPs) and “no credits” (NCs) functionally operate as the primary measures for employment discipline. In the context of teaching and research assistant positions, failure to perform job duties results in LP/NC grades. The accrual of multiple LPs or NCs can result in academic probation or removal from our employment as graduate students. 

Article 1 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) defines a legal strike as a form of “protected, concerted activity,” and Section 8 states that employers may not “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7.” A strike of labor is one such right, and threatening disciplinary grading action for strike participation is one such form of coercion. 

The Dartmouth administration has chosen to wield the threat of LP/NC grades as a tool for coercing  graduate workers not to strike. In Dartmouth’s “Faculty: Strike Information FAQs,” the Dartmouth administration states, “[g]rades for all courses, including research and teaching courses, should be assigned using same [sic] academic metrics and standards as they would under normal circumstances.” While vague, this language is understood by many graduate workers as permitting individual faculty to implement retaliatory measures of discipline against striking workers if they choose.

There is still time to fix this. We demand that Dartmouth administration publicly affirm that, as a matter of College policy, strike participation will not result in removal from PhD or Masters programs, academic probation, removal of funding, or the implementation of any action that moves students closer to facing these disciplinary actions. 

We will not tolerate any graduate worker being retaliated against or disciplined, including with academic probation or program dismissal, due to their participation in the strike. If such retaliation occurs, the signatories below commit to full participation in the strike. We also commit to further collective labor actions until all disciplinary action is undone and any affected workers are made whole.

Signed,

GOLD UE Members:

1. Dan Murante

2. George Dufresne

3. Rayna Rampalli

4. Jake Willard

5. Martin Ying

6. Kai Herron

7. Dennis Webster

8. Ankita Sarkar

9. Kameron McCombs

10. Jonathan Lindbloom

11. Yixuan Peng

12. Genevieve Goebel

13. Ma. Francesca Santiago

14. David Freeman

15. Logan Mann

16. Aamani Thulluru

17. Grace Carey

18. Rendi Rogers

19. Elora Greiner

20. Jackson Yant

21. Cove Geary

22. Anja Holtz

23. Ridhi Chandarana Rajesh

24. Matthew Slein

25. Will Clendenning

26. Amy Conaway

27. Quinn Casey

28. Wisse Haakma

29. Joseph Savage

30. Benjamin Getraer

31. Sarah Cuprewich

32. Jamie Good

33. Magdalina Moses

34. Galini Poimenidou

35. Kristen Jovanelly

36. Montserrat Perez Castro

37. Casey Latario

38. Irma Vlasac

39. Lia Michaels

40. Smitakshi Goswami

41. Zachary Boyce

42. Jannitta Yao

43. Shan-Chang Lin

44. Madeline Hoey

45. Stacie Stuut
    

46. Andrew Projansky
    

47. Mia Phillips
    

48. Ian Raphael
    

49. Nesibe Derin Sivrioglu
    

50. Tara Tomlinson
    

51. Douglas Beahm
    

52. Yukuan Tao
    

53. Alina Dracheva
    

54. James Logan
    

55. Kiran Mirpuri
    

56. Allison Mann
    

57. Robin Zou
    

58. Simone Evans
    

59. Atticus McWhorter

60. Keighley Rockcliffe 
    

61. Beth Anne Castellano
    

62. Mayra Flores
    

63. Jonathan Conroy
    

64. Reina Harding
    

65. Aliza Phillips

66. Lilly Tipton
    

67. Alex Gottlieb

68. Muhammad Qasim Khan

69. Alex Mule

70.  Anthony Cressman
    

71. Jason Necaise

72. Lucas Dyke

73. Brent Harrison 
    

74. Danelle Akanova
    

75. Fan Feng
    

76. Luke Rein
    

77. Jules van Irsel
    

78. Sarah Peery
    

79. Weishi Wang
    

80. Jackson Shimkonis
    

81. Samantha Liu
    

82. Alex Fu
    

83. Stephanie Podjed 
    

84. João Pedro Teuber Carvalho
    

85. Pepper Pennington
    

86. Aylin García Soto
    

87. Emmanuel Durodola
    

88. Linta Joseph 
    

89. Qianxu Wang
    

90. Pradipta Debnath
    

91. Matt Rock
    

92. Flora Perlmutter
    

93. Yiyi Tang

94. Saima Shikesho 
    

95. Divya Ravi
    

96. Chinaza Nnam
    

97. Kate Miller
    

98. Maggie O'Shea
    

99. Mert Ozkan
    

100. Sanjana Pannem
     

101. Alexander Getraer 
     

102. Madeline Morrisson
     

103. Helen Jarnagin
     

104. Jonathan Alperstein

105. Bailey Nordin
     

106. Sophia Micale

107. Chloe Sweetman

108. Lan Nguyen

109. Karl Biggs 
     

110. Julianna Donohoe 
     

111. Quin Shingai

112. Hieu Nguyen 
     

113. Dylan Green
     

114. Francois LeSage
     

115. Rebecca Valls