Overstepping Its Bounds

Despite its successes in the realms of student services and student life, the Undergraduate Council (UC) has somehow found its way back to the perilous business of taking political stands—this time in a resolution supporting janitors during their contract negotiations with the University. Though well-intentioned, the UC must abstain from issuing political platitudes, as council reps lack the authority to take such stances on behalf of their constituents.

The UC’s resolution in support of janitors is clearly a political statement. True, the resolution does not have any specific mention of a “living wage” nor does it reference the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) directly. Nevertheless, the resolution does contain a statement of values that it “supports custodial workers” and “affirms that workers at Harvard deserve to be paid at a level commensurate with that of other universities in the area.” This language adopts and tacitly supports SLAM’s arguments that janitors’ wages and benefits are not sufficient, even if it does not specifically endorse SLAM’s proposed $20 an hour solution.

The resolution also “calls on the University to honor the explicit promises it made to custodial workers in 2002.” Though the notion of honoring contractual promises seems non-political, it is a matter of dispute between the two parties. For instance, SLAM claims it was a contractual obligation to have 60 percent of janitors be full-time employees by 2005. The University, however, states that the 60 percent figure was actually a contractual goal that the University has been making good progress towards, having increased the number of full-time janitors from 32 percent to 49 percent, a 53 percent improvement. By supporting SLAM’s position, the UC resolution takes a side in a political and divisive campus debate that the UC should stay out of.

The UC’s resolution harkens back to its less-effective past. Until just a few years ago, the UC spent much of its time passing irrelevant political resolutions on anything and everything from international human rights to boycotts of local businesses. Such resolutions were and are an ineffectual waste of time—the odds that a Chinese leader noticed the UC’s 1997 denunciation of China’s human rights record are slim to none. The UC’s record led us to write just under four years ago that “the UC has an unfortunate history of being a somewhat irrelevant campus organization.”

Politics should be outside the realm of the UC for two reasons. First, representatives are not elected for their political views. Whatever the reason that UC candidates garner votes—from having great ideas about how to improve Harvard to generally being nice people—UC elections are independent of a candidate’s political leanings. Consequently, the UC’s political stances reduce their legitimacy, both in the eyes of the student body and the administration. This hurts the UC’s ability to negotiate with the administration on issues like student advocacy and services, where the UC actually is the voice of the student body. It has no mandate to issue political proclamations, and should not act as if it does.

Second, there are a large number of student groups that support positions on a broad swath of issues. These groups compete with one another to influence campus opinion and—if possible—the world at large. The UC should leave political advocacy to these groups and let the debate play out in public discourse rather than proclaiming the view of a diverse student body by fiat.

The UC’s comparative advantage as a student government lies in the realm of petitioning the administration on behalf of students and providing student services. It should confine itself to those areas where it has a clear role and can make a difference, instead of squandering its power and time by dabbling in pointless political manifestos.