PSLM Turns Focus on Corporation

After two years of demonstrations targeting the deans and vice presidents of Mass. Hall and University Hall, students campaigning for a living wage have moved their protests to the stately and well-guarded Loeb House, home of the Harvard Corporation, the University's top governing body.

Over the past eight weeks, students have held two rallies on the manicured lawn of Loeb House and have even driven to New York to target Corporation members in their homes and offices.

Members of the Progressive Student Movement Labor Movement (PSLM) say they hope that focusing on the Corporation will force the administration to implement a living wage of at least $10.25 per hour for all Harvard employees. And by loudly calling attention to the existence of the Corporation, they say they hope to galvanize students to change the inner workings of the University.

This is a move that hasn't been seen on campus for at least a decade, says former Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III. Students targeted the University's highest decision-making body in the anti-Vietnam campaign of 1969, and again in an extended campaign against investment in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

But it's not clear that PSLM's current strategy will have any real effect on winning a living wage.

In response to students' agitation, a high-ranking committee of faculty members and administrators released a 100-page report last spring-after 13 months of research-recommending that the University enlarge the scope of worker benefits, including health insurance, education and access to campus facilities. University President Neil L. Rudenstine approved the recommendations, many of which have already taken effect.

Fulfilling these recommendations will most likely be the extent of the University's response, says Harvard's Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Paul S. Grogan, regardless of the number of student actions aimed at Corporation members.

"This simply won't be an effective tactic in causing the University to reopen a question it has already engaged in very comprehensively and very seriously," Grogan says.

"[PSLM's new strategy] is not going to change things," Grogan says. "They're going to a lot of effort to reopen this whole campaign on the narrow question of a wage standard. The prospects of doing that are remote, no matter how many Corporation members' houses they go to."

Taking It To The Top

PSLM member Aaron D. Bartley says he began to recognize the Corporation's unparalleled decision-making ability after examining a University charter dating back to the 17th century.

"We realized that the Corporation exercises almost complete legal authority over every matter on campus," says Bartley, a third-year student at the law school.

As a result, the organization rethought its focus.

It no longer made sense to plan elaborate actions to target deans who are not ultimately in charge, says Benjamin L. McKean '02, a member of PSLM. In addition, the administrators who were the focus of actions for the past two years no longer seemed willing to do anything more than listen.

"It was clear after the release of the report in May that the administration on the level of the president and provost considered the issue closed," McKean says. "So we asked ourselves, 'Well, they don't want to do anything, so who's in charge of them?'"

"The Corporation is really in charge of everything. Ultimately, they are the man," he says. "And so we figured we should ask for a meeting with them."

But the students say their attempts to set up a meeting with Corporation members have been unsuccessful and disillusioning.

McKean says he remembers asking Rudenstine whether students could sit in at a Corporation meeting during the president's office hours earlier this year.

Rudenstine simply stared, McKean says, and swirled his tonic water for about 30 seconds before telling McKean that the Corporation usually deliberates alone.

Stymied by the official bureaucracy, the students decided to try more creative ways to reach the seemingly elusive Corporation members.

PSLM members recently held a rally with a "Hunt for the Corporation" theme. They led students from University Hall to Loeb House holding cardboard effigies of Corporation members with the name, company affiliation and net worth of each emblazoned on the head and body.

In February, PSLM members spent a weekend in New York, attempting to track down Corporation members at their homes and offices.

They visited Corporation member Conrad K. Harper's home in Connecticut, were escorted out of D. Ron Daniel's office at McKinsey and Co., and leafleted the Harvard Club of New York.

They say future visits are a definite possibility.

Loeb House's Legacy

But while PSLM has only recently realized the quiet power of the Corporation, Epps says this strategy is not without precedent-it is a natural step in the progression of an escalating campaign.

Epps points to the anti-Vietnam "crisis" in 1969, where students, claiming that Harvard was complicit in the war, protested the presence of ROTC on campus.

While there are significant differences between the campaigns of 30 years ago and today's living wage campaign, Epps draws certain parallels.

"Those were the days of a counter-culture movement against authority," Epps says. "We don't have that today."

"I think that the number of activists seems to be smaller, but they are equally active in passionate campaigns that involve big ethical issues," he continues.

Loeb House's Quincy Street address was also a destination for student activists 30 years ago, who rallied, picketed in front of the building and organized sit-ins-a move PSLM has yet to make.

"Ordinarily, Harvard protests have not targeted individuals, but rather the decision-making body," Epps says.

While the Loeb House actions of 30 years ago did galvanize the student body, Epps says the picketing, rallies and sit-ins failed to directly result in change.

Instead, students worked within the existing power structure of the University to win concessions.

"Eventually, the students found faculty allies who raised the issue on faculty floor," Epps says. And Epps says it was this move that finally led to ROTC being withdrawn from campus.

This is the way student campaigns work best, Epps says, and recently, PSLM members have stepped up their efforts to enlist faculty members to their cause.

"I think protests have been most effective when the students have found some sort of cooperative way of working with the institution, which in many cases is interested in finding solutions to issues," he says.

He says he recognizes that this approach may be less attractive than direct confrontation.

"The frustration for many students is that this process takes time," Epps says. "But it's still true at Harvard that the best idea carries the day."

On The Watch

But PSLM's recent attention to the Corporation goes even beyond the question of implementing a living wage, McKean says.

He says they take issue with the very existence of a seven-member Corporation that does not meet with students, deliberates behind closed doors and does not release an agenda or minutes for its meetings.

Earlier this year, PSLM members joined with members of other campus activist groups to revive HarvardWatch-a student-monitoring group formed in the late 1980s.

Members of BGLTSA, the Harvard College Democrats and other students from progressive organizations currently meet once per week, hoping to learn more about the Corporation and ultimately make its proceedings more transparent.

The more he finds out about the Corporation, Bartley says, the more concerned he becomes.

"I am worried about the constitution of the Corporation and how geared it is to people with a limited set of experiences," Bartley says. "There is nothing inherently wrong with being a big businessman, but there are other ways of looking at the world that are not represented on the Corporation. That's something we'll try to change."

PSLM members cite the presidential search process-no students were included in the search committee-as one very visible problem in the University's governance.

"For them to be this incredibly unaccountable is amazing," McKean says.

"They're so used to being able to hide. In the last few years, no one has considered talking to them," Bartley says.

HarvardWatch organizers say they are attempting to establish a base of students to question the existing power structure and push for reforms to make the University's decision-making process more transparent.

"The Corporation seems to rely on the thought that they are here forever and students are only here for four years," McKean says. "But we're going to build a cross-year coalition of students that's always replenishing and won't accept the way the Corporation wants to run things."