Tuesday's editorial, "University administration, GFTEO must compromise," while astute in recognizing an issue which plagues this university, contained some misunderstandings.

First, the suggestion that "members of GFTEO do not believe that we should be "asked to do work with little or no relevance to [our] degree[s] (e.g. an American Literature graduate student teaching an introductory class in writing)" is misleading.

We at GFTEO understand we are employed to make sure the university operates, and this necessarily entails teaching classes that fall beyond the realm of our respective specialties.

In fact, many of us frequently welcome this challenge.

Our concern is the administration's repeated claims that the labor we do for the university provides a pedagogical purpose and, therefore, magically becomes something other than labor.

The reality of clerical work and repeatedly teaching classes, which we may never again teach after leaving PSU, complicate the administration's purely academic story.

And what of graduate employees who will (by choice or circumstance) never find academic jobs?

I fail to see what benefit a graduate employee who seeks to work for a policy institute gets from teaching an introductory course in American politics six times.

Second, the administration's position on unionization seems clear: Not only will there be no union, there will be no public discussion of the issue.

As the Collegian mentions, GFTEO has repeatedly been denied opportunities to address the university community.

But if the university exists precisely to protect the sanctity of free speech and exchange of ideas, the suggestion that GFTEO compromise on this issue is misguided.