Dartmouth College’s graduate student union is the subject of a religious discrimination complaint filed by a graduate student and teaching assistant opposed to the union’s support for pro-Palestinian causes.

Benjamin Logsdon, a student in Dartmouth’s mathematics doctoral program since 2020 who currently teaches a calculus class, lodged the religious discrimination claim last month. He is being represented by the same advocacy group that represented five Jewish graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who objected to union membership there on religious grounds.

On Sept. 17, Logsdon filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that the union had violated his rights under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, also known as UE, and The Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth, or GOLD-UE Local 261, “are discriminating against me and threatening my termination due to their failure to accommodate my religious beliefs, which are opposed to affiliating with or being represented by these unions,” Logsdon wrote in his complaint to the EEOC.

The national and campus labor organizations’ “stances on Israel and related topics,” he further stated, “violate my sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Both the national union and GOLD-UE, which secured its first contract with the school in June, have expressed support for the plight of civilian Palestinians in the year-long Israel-Hamas war. In July, the UE sent a letter to President Biden, calling on his administration to halt all military aid to Israel.

Zachary Knipe, a UE field organizer who works with Local 261, noted that although many union members participated in pro-Palestinian activism on the Dartmouth Green on May 1, the union voted not to endorse the protests, “because there was not a uniformity of views.”

Neither the national union nor Local 261 has threatened Logsdon with termination, Knipe said in a phone interview Tuesday.

“There’s no condition where we would do anything that would threaten his employment,” Knipe added.

Logsdon did not respond to requests for comment this week. His complaint to the EEOC follows a letter he wrote in July to Andrew Dinkelaker, the general secretary of the UE, expressing religious objections to being affiliated with, or represented by, the union because of its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

GOLD-UE is a “full union shop,” meaning that all of the roughly 800 degree-seeking graduate students who work as research or teaching assistants at Dartmouth are automatically members of the bargaining unit.

UE’s national union did not challenge Logsdon’s complaint. It offered him the option to pay the equivalent of his union dues to a charity of his choice while remaining in the bargaining unit, the same arrangement accepted by the four M.I.T. students in August. But Logsdon did not find that a satisfactory option.

A Sept. 30 news release from the National Right to Work Foundation, a conservative, anti-union advocacy group providing Logsdon with free legal aid, describes him as “a Christian whose sincere religious beliefs put him at odds with GOLD union officials and the radical activity and ideological positions they are promoting.”

The foundation declined to elaborate on the nature of the religious aspect of Logsdon’s complaint.

“I haven’t talked to him about his theological beliefs,” National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens said by phone Tuesday.

But Logsdon “fundamentally wants to be out from under the representation of the bargaining unit,” Semmens said, and objects to the fact that the union “controls the conditions of employment.”

For Logsdon to sever his membership in the bargaining unit is “not possible,” Knipe, the field organizer, said. “The union is obligated to represent him, and we are going to do that, with enthusiasm.”

Knipe pointed to the benefits that Logsdon receives, regardless of his level of participation in union meetings and activities.

“He is protected by the union,” Knipe said. “He got a $7,000 raise this year, and will receive all of the benefits,” for which the union bargained, including a 3% cost of living adjustment annually, full dental coverage, paid medical leave, and a 40% contribution by the college to dependent health care premiums.

In addition to the option to pay the equivalent of his dues to a charity of his choice, Logsdon may at any time choose to participate in the discussions and votes that shape the bargaining unit’s stances on issues, Knipe said.

“There’s been a robust democratic process at Local 261 since its inception,” Knipe said. Logsdon, he said, is free to raise concerns and have his voice heard on divisive topics.

Semmens pushed back on the reference to democratic processes within Local 261.

“They are not nearly as democratic as they claim,” he said. He likened union dues to the Jim Crow-era poll tax, a voting fee meant to suppress the African-American electorate, and said that union votes often lacked transparency.

“There’s no reason he needs to be part of this bargaining unit,” Semmens said, as long as both Dartmouth and GOLD-UE agree to release him from his obligation of membership.

Dartmouth, however, would violate its contract with GOLD-UE if it were to enter into an employment contract with a graduate student individually.

Knipe said that he thinks there’s been some misunderstanding on Logsdon’s part: “We are more than happy to discuss his concerns with him and to figure this out in a way that allows him to understand both our obligations and his rights.”

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.