Friday, October 30, 2009

'DNA sample may be required for hiring'

The new rules at Akron were adopted by the Board of Trustees in August, but most faculty members only learned of them in a recent e-mail list of announcements sent by the university to all employees. The rules state that background checks will be performed on all candidates selected for employment and that all offers will be "contingent on successful completion" of the check. Further, they state that all applicants "may be asked to submit a DNA sample." The rules specifically state that all employees, including faculty members, are covered.

Laura Martinez Massie, spokeswoman for Akron, said that the university would not comment on the resignation of Williams. She also said that to date, the university has not collected DNA and has no plans to do so, but is "merely reserving the right to do so."

'Merely reserving the right', yeah. And they wouldn't do that if they didn't have plans to use it.

Pointed to by Insty

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Background check for criminal convictions, I can see that.
Even, for high security purposes, financial credit scores.
But DNA? Why? What next? Politikal Korrectness?

B Woodman
III-per

wolfwalker said...

One possible interpretation is a legal CYA by the university. Fourth Amendment: taking a DNA sample is considered a search, and the government needs at least a warrant to do it. But if the individual has already signed a contract agreeing to provide a DNA sample on demand by his employer, then the employer can demand the sample and turn the results over to the police.

Anonymous said...

WW,
So you're saying that once again, it comes down to the lawyer-ese fine print.

We need to treat lawyers like the military expression when fighting overseas enemy, "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out."

B Woodman
III-per

Anonymous said...

DNA samples? F#ck a bunch of that shit!