July 1999

Rape crisis, labor fights behind ivy-covered walls

by J.O.

Cambridge, Mass.-You can't eat prestige, the saying goes. You can't hide behind it either. In a unified voice, struggles at the most prestigious university in the U.S., Harvard, made these points this spring.

News & Letters reported a protest at Harvard University on March 9. The rally demanded that a student guilty of rape be dismissed ("Date rape protest," April 1999). That demonstration in fact brought together three campus campaigns, forging links that could strengthen any campus movement. Along with the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, the "Rally for Justice" included the Living Wage Campaign and the Students Against Sweatshops (SAS).

The Students Against Sweatshops is an organization working to force the university to mandate minimum labor standards in the factories where its logo apparel is manufactured. The university has agreed to SAS's demands for full disclosure of factories that produce such apparel. In contention still are the details of independent monitoring, including the administration unilaterally turning to an audit firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers, to do the monitoring.

The Living Wage Campaign has met greater resistance, however, likely because it challenges Harvard's role as a rich employer. The Campaign for a Living Wage organized a walkout against June 10 commencement speaker, Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan. According to the campaign's flyer, Greenspan "proudly propagates the view that widespread job insecurity and financial instability are beneficial for the economy. This ignores the fact that such instability is socially and economically disastrous for American families."

The campaign, a coalition of students, workers, and faculty members working together to eliminate the problem of low-wage labor at Harvard University, holds that anyone who works for Harvard, whether directly employed or subcontracted to an outside company, should be paid a living wage of at least $10 per hour, adjustable for inflation. It is estimated that there are currently 2,000 such workers.

Harvard is the richest university in the world, with an endowment of $13 billion, and the second richest non-profit institution in the world (second only to the Vatican); it can afford to pay its employees a living wage. The campaign considers the administration's response, to form a faculty task force, to be simply more foot-dragging.

The Coalition Against Student Violence emerged when an undergraduate woman accused a male student of raping her. Following spurious reports about the incident and cover-ups, hers and another rape victim's voices were heard in an interview published in an independent student newspaper, PERSPECTIVE. They complained that the school did not take the problem of rape seriously enough and lacked adequate resources for rape survivors.

Although the coalition won a demand for "Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment" counselors, to the demand for a women's center that would be a locus of women's rights and resources, the administration replied that "the creation of a separate space for women (or for minority students) would institutionalize the notion that the rest of Harvard does not fully belong to them."

While the name "Harvard" is synonymous with "establishment," many there are ready to challenge the institutions of male domination and class rule.

To contact the Living Wage Campaign, email maclean@fas.harvard.edu; Coalition Against Sexual Violence, greenw@fas.harvard.edu; Sweatshop Campaign, arfisch@fas.harvard.edu

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