It's Time, Rudenstine

Poor Rudy. Only a few days left as Harvard’s president, and he can’t even enjoy them. He can’t read the stacks of books that are reportedly piled in his office. He can’t put up his feet on the antique furniture. He can’t even read this paper behind his own desk, if he reads this paper at all. Why can’t Rudy get rid of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM)?

It’s not that he hasn’t tried his best.

For mild-mannered Rudenstine, the official line sounds like that of a last-action hero: I don’t negotiate with terrorists. I envision him sitting (at home?) spamming the student body, his words booming out to the faceless (and bodyless) crowd, which roars in answer, “Ru-den-stine! Ru-den-stine!”

Instead, his whispers in the night are met only with a great, collective delete.

At least he can take comfort in the fact that PSLM’s chants are met with equal student apathy. (Note: A janitor suggested to me that PSLM replace chanting with periods of silence, judging they would have greater effect by symbolizing that students and workers are waiting for the University to speak. I think he’s onto something.)

In between emails, Rudenstine must be holding his head, thinking—much as Gore must have when the Lewinsky scandal broke—why now? Just when I was about to be my own man!

The question, “Why now?” is not hard to figure out.

Rudenstine has gone out of his way to avoid conflicts, be they Harvardian, Cantabridgian, American or worse. Summers is the kind of guy who would be flattered to be on Celebrity Death Match duking it out with Courtney Love, or Julia Butterfly Hill, or Greenpeace.

Not that PSLM is afraid of Summers. Amy C. Offner ’01 reportedly told her minions that Summers is “very ugly and remarkably inarticulate.” But don’t count on Summers to feel injured by Offner’s fighting words. He may lack aesthetic charm or conversational cunning, but he sure as hell won’t let his office be occupied.

So PSLM is praying Rudenstine will want to add something more to the legacy that currently reads, “He once raised $1 million in a single day.” They’re praying he’ll take a stand before Summers kicks them off their platform.

PSLM gambled, but the odds are against them. They forgot to account for Rudenstine’s temperament. He’s a scholar, not a leader. Stuck in the ivory tower of inaction to the last, Rudenstine will hand over his office to Summers untainted by momentous decisions changing the course of Harvard’s history—though it will be irrevocably tainted by the smell of 30 unwashed undergraduates.

That’s a sad remark to make at the end of a man’s tenure as president of this prestigious university. Yet I have an ineffable sense of pity for Rudenstine and his predicament. I can imagine him, sitting on his desert island (wireless Internet?), hoping against hope that the protesters will run out of food, or interest, before graduation. Anything so that he can just go on into the world in peace.

Rudenstine, I hate to tell ya, the world is not at peace. What PSLM is really sitting in for is not just about janitors, not just about dining hall workers, not just about $10.25 or Harvard’s responsibility as a member of the Cambridge community.

PSLM is sitting in against inequality. Inequality that’s big, that’s global, that affects Domna as much as it affects the garment workers in Indonesia, the diamond miners in South Africa and the students at Harvard. PSLM has made inequality easy for us to understand. A living wage, a floor below which no one should sink. A standard of living. Harvard’s direct responsibility to those it employs. Harvard’s ability to make up the difference.

But when it comes to inequality on a global scale, things get more complicated. We, the collective Harvard We, are benefitting from this rising inequality. We’re going to earn more, as those with less education and less skills see their wages decline. We, the collective American We, are benefiting from low-price consumer goods and increasing jobs in higher-paid sectors. We, the collective developed nations We, are benefiting from better trade balances and environmental standards.

All these things make it harder for us to argue against inequality. It may be easy to argue that Harvard has a responsibility to its workers, but what responsibility do I have to the workers in Africa, or Indonesia? What is our (rich) country’s responsibility to your (poor) country?

Answering these questions isn’t easy, but sooner or later we’re all going to have to make a decision. We’re all going to have to pick a side.

We know, as well as PSLM, where Summers stands. But we’re still not sure about you, Rudy.

It’s time for you to do the right thing, even if you know it’s not what Summers would do. Some decisions are inescapable. Some battles will be waged inside and outside the ivory tower. Sometime everyone has to take a stand. It’s your time, Rudenstine.

Ru-den-stine. Ru-den-stine.

Meredith B. Osborn ’02 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.