Banner-Waving Parents Barred From Lewis Speech

The Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) told six parents they could not attend a junior parents weekend panel unless they agreed to put away banners calling for a living wage for Harvard workers.

When the parents of Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) members--holding posters reading "Caution: Social Injustice Zone" and "Act for a Living Wage"--entered Science Center lecture hall B for opening remarks by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68, they were approached by a plainclothes HUPD officer.

The officer told the parents that they had a choice--to put down the signs or leave.

"A cop told me that the dean had required there not be any signs or demonstrations," said Bob Lynn, parent of PSLM member Andrew L. Lynn '02. "He said it was a closed meeting and so they could exclude anybody or anything they want."

Lewis said he did not make such a specific request to HUPD.

"The police were asked in general terms to see that visitors weren't hassled, and if people were carrying signs into the lecture hall, then they made the right judgment call in preventing that," Lewis wrote in an e-mail.

The request did not specifically target PSLM, Lewis writes.

"This wouldn't have been anything to do with this particular group or with this particular event--in general it

is impolite both to those speaking and to those trying to watch and listen

to have signs raised in lecture halls," he wrote.

But the parents, who acceded to HUPD's requests and held their banners just outside the lecture hall, said they were surprised by the reaction.

After the parents left the lecture hall, HUPD officers watched them from the doors to Science Center B.

Judi Laing, parent of PSLM member Benjamin L. McKean '02, said the HUPD officers were unable to give her any real justification for their demands that she put down her brightly-colored "Living Wage Now" sign.

"I was very surprised. What we were doing was not illegal in any way," she said. "I asked [the officer] why and all he could say was, 'because.'"

"The whole thing is just ridiculous," McKean said. "It shows us to what extent the administration fears expression on this issue."

"It just doesn't take ten cops to subdue a pair of unruly parents," he said.

Besides, McKean said, the parents should not have been given the ultimatum of putting down the signs or leaving the lecture hall.

"It's not like a bunch of strangers barging into a meeting they're not invited to," McKean said. "If they wanted to express their views on the administration's behavior, they should be more than allowed to do so."

But Lewis says this just wasn't the appropriate forum.

"There were plenty of other

opportunities for protest sentiments to be expressed over the weekend

without disrupting the speakers and panels in any way," Lewis writes.

New York City

While the PSLM "home team" advocated for a living wage in the Science Center, a 20-person "away team" travelled to Greenwich Connecticut and New York City to target members of the Harvard Corporation at their homes and offices.

PSLM members say the trip was the first in a series of protests that will target Corporation members, as the ultimate decision-makers at Harvard.

Although none of the Corporation members were in their offices, the students said the trip was worthwhile--not only did they get a sense of how the Corporation members live, but they were also able to speak to secretaries and co-workers about living wage issues.

The student protestors travelled from the Rockefeller Plaza to yacht clubs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, leaving leaflets with worker's testimonies about Harvard's wages on them.

They found their way into the Harvard Club of New York and proceeded to place leaflets advocating a living wage in every possible location.

"The Harvard Club was the most memorable part of the trip. We were in this very old, Harvard-looking building with portraits of dead white men on the walls and big old moose heads," said PSLM member Matthew R. Skomarovsky '03.

"We left the leaflets in bathrooms, magazines, drawers and shelves. We just covered the place," he continued. "People will be finding them for months to come."

And that sort of publicity was ultimately the purpose of the trip, says PSLM member Aaron D. Bartley, a third-year law student.

"We're doing our best to show that although Harvard wants to be seen as an elite educational institution, in many ways it has become a cutthroat business run by businesspeople," Bartley says. "Our intention was to actually get people to ask who's in charge and why they're in charge."