Jumping on the Wagon

According to University Professor Cornel R. West '74, "[Harvard's Living Wage Campaign] is the most significant wave of student activism since the 1960's. It shatters the stereotypes that young students are not concerned with what is right and just." Students have organized and participated in rallies and campaigns to eradicate poverty wages at Harvard because, according to the Harvard Living Wage Campaign web site, "you can't eat prestige." But even if it can't proffer the nourishment that a living wage could, it still never hurts to have prestige on your side.

Last week, almost 100 Harvard University faculty members made it clear to President Neil L. Rudenstine and Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 that the battle for a Harvard Living Wage could no longer be regarded as a student movement but rather as a community-based effort. Each signature on the open letter supporting the Living Wage Campaign brings the movement a step closer to the prestige and legitimacy--and ultimate it deserves.

Although the University has yet to respond to the open letter, we are eager to hear what Rudenstine and the new Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies have to say. We hope that especially after almost 100 faculty members signed their names in support of a $10 an hour minimum wage, the University takes the efforts of those pressing the issue and signing the petitions seriously.

Now that the professors and faculty members have pledged their support to what had initially been a cause motivated mostly by students, the University and the Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies will confront a campaign unified among students, faculty and community members and workers themselves.

Clearly, the ball is now in Rudenstine and the University's court. In an April 9 Op-Ed in The Crimson, Fineberg explained that because of the complexity of the issue at hand, the University's decision "will not be simple and [is] not apt to be quick." Perhaps now that so many faculty members have joined the cause, the University will be moved to act a little more quickly.