An Analysis of Student Activism at Harvard

 
“I was told once that if I wanted to go protest something I should have gone to UC Berkeley and not Harvard,” said Karely Osorio, member of the Student Labor Action Movement. Despite housing a student-led non-profit with eighty-six programs and its own center dedicated to politics and public service, Harvard is not known for its student activism. Considering that programs organized through the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) and the Institute of Politics (IOP) aim to understand the social, political, and economic inequities that advocacy targets, the gap cannot be explained by a lack of student motivation. Chloe Maxmin, co-founder of Divest Harvard, explained how “the fact that PBHA is such a popular program at Harvard speaks to how the majority of people on our campus want to better the world and help people.” While Harvard-supported programs allow students to think about social injustices, student-initiated advocacy demands a critical self-reflection—a practice that, in the context of Harvard, can explain the small scale of campus activism.
According to student advocacy and service leaders, Harvard can be described as having a culture of discussion. Osorio told the HPR that “there’s not really a culture of activism; there’s more of a culture of ‘what do we think about this and why do we think about this.’” The type of critical thinking and analysis developed in academic courses is practiced in organized PBHA meetings as well as IOP forums, study groups, and discussions. According to advocacy leaders, for many Harvard students, discussion is thought of as an end in itself.
Advocacy demands a critical reflection not only of social issues, but of one’s place within them. Unlike Harvard-supported public service initiatives, student-led activism is oppositional. For Harvard students this means questioning not only the role of their university in structures of inequality, but also recognizing their place within it. In an interview with the HPR, William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, explained how “students at Harvard and places like Harvard feel comfortable with the system as it exists. To take an activist position you need to have a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo.” Divest’s Maxmin agrees saying, “At a place like Harvard we are embedded in the status quo and our institution represents the status quo and we are learning in that environment and we chose to go to that environment. I think it’s hard to be there and say, ‘Wait a second. I’m going to fight against all of this.’”
At a place like Harvard it can be difficult to recognize, let alone reconcile, one’s position within structural inequality. Activism demands that students not only acknowledge an injustice maintained by their community, but recognize their part within that very community. “Our school is in a very prestigious position, but we invest in fossil fuel industries, we don’t treat our workers well, we own plantations that are destroying people’s communities, and as students at the university we have to highlight those injustices and push Harvard to be better,” said Maxmin. Aryt Alasti, a Harvard security guard who participates in the Student Labor Action Movement, believes that “a reason why we don’t get a larger population of students becoming activists is that the daily life experience of someone like a typical custodian is so outside of the realm of people’s own life experiences that they can’t conceive what it’s about.” Activism requires not only an awareness of systemic inequities, but also a recognition of one’s role in perpetuating their existence.
The disparity in participation between institutionally-supported service initiatives and student-led activism holds larger implications. While service is undoubtedly critical, service and advocacy leaders alike emphasize that this alone is not enough. Jose Magana, President of the Phillips Brooks House Association, explains how “direct service is extremely necessary but we need to advocate for something bigger to make sure that this is not a band-aid solution but that we’re actually causing structural change.” While public service programs respond to community needs that demand urgent attention, they do not challenge the structural causes of those needs. Rather, service programs support systems as they exist. Deresiewicz explains, “Community service is not a very radical critique. It accepts the world as it is but wants to sort of adjust it a little bit.”
Activism demands a critique of systems in place and allows students to question them in a way that is not possible with an institutionally-supported program. In an interview with the HPR, Blake McGhghy, founder of the United Students Against Sweatshop’s Education Justice campaign at Harvard, explained how “institutional opportunities to make change can prevent students from engaging in the more direct action and student organizing that really challenges authority and broader systemic injustice.” While institutionally-supported programming allows students to participate in analytical engagement, because these programs are made possible through university resources, they do not encourage the same direct critique as activism.
The popularity of institutionally-supported public service initiatives reveals the motivation of the Harvard student body to engage in social, political, and economic issues. Yet, these programs do not push for crucial structural changes. While encouraging students to think critically about social issues, they do not demand the self-reflection of one’s own existence and contribution to the structures that perpetuate inequality. According to Deresiewicz, community service can “create the idea that the best thing for people of high or great privilege to do to address the problems in society is to use their wonderfulness to make things better for other people, rather than a more searching critique of that privilege to begin with.”
At a university of such immense privilege, that critique can be difficult to confront. It demands a student face the unjust realities within and perpetuated by Harvard and take the risk of speaking against the very community they chose to join. Activism requires critiquing a system that, by virtue of being at Harvard, has served students in some way. “Meritocracy tells the meritocrats that they are great and why would you question a system that tells you that?” said Deresiewicz. An activist culture that looms quietly next to bustling community service and political initiatives demonstrates the difference between both forms of organizing. The former requires a critical self-reflection that, while difficult to confront, is necessary and, as students who benefit to some extent within structural inequality, a responsibility.
The disparity in advocacy and public service participation at Harvard demands reflection and concern. Given the privilege that Harvard students have, by virtue of attending a place of immense prestige, we must not only analyze societal issues and respond to existing community needs, but we also need to challenge the structures that create them. A student culture that engages in service and discourse without the vital component of advocacy is not only incomplete, but dangerous. It reveals a reluctance that has the potential to maintain the very inequities we aid, discuss, and analyze, but have yet to question.
Image credit: Harvard SLAM