Advertisement

Students Ready To Surround University Hall

Progressive rally expected to draw several hundred

About 200 to 300 students are expected to fill Tercentenary Theater at 2:30 p.m. today to hear speeches, chant slogans and surround University Hall as part of a rally for progressive causes.

Protesters will meet on the steps of Memorial Church and will surround University Hall at 3:15 p.m. to await Faculty members who will gather at 3:30 p.m. for the third full Faculty meeting of the year.

Protesters will call on Faculty members to respond to campaigns against sweatshop labor, for a $10-per-hour living wage for all Harvard workers and for improved various services for women who have been sexually assaulted.

The rally will feature six speakers with one student and one non-student representing each cause.

Today's events are headed by the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) and the Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV).

Advertisement

Faculty members will have to pass through a "human corridor" to enter University Hall. Protesters plan to use the opportunity to distribute literature about their causes to the Faculty.

During an open question portion of the meeting, Undergraduate Council representative Benjamin O. Shuldiner '99 will ask the Faculty to respond to the protesters' demands.

Although the rally will officially end at 4:30 p.m., some protesters will stay for the duration of the meeting to greet exiting Faculty members with a candlelight vigil.

"This is one of few times we will have the Faculty together, so we want to get the word out," said Eleanor I. Benko '02 of PSLM. "A lot of them have written on economic justice and social justice, and we want to get them on our side."

Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. '59 said he is aware the rally is taking place but does not foresee that it will affect the Faculty meeting inside University Hall.

Captain Charles A. Schwab of the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) said officers will be on hand during the rally, but HUPD is not anticipating a disturbance. "We'll probably have a couple people in the area," he said. "We're not expecting any real problems."

Supporters of the Living Wage Campaign say today's rally is an extension of a Feb.26 protest held in front of Mass. Hall at which demands to speak to University President Neil L. Rudenstine or Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 were not met.

"The University only gave us a meeting with [Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III], which is really a blatant insult because he is the dean of students and this is an issue that goes beyond students," said Justin B. Wood '98-'99. "Our demand is to meet with people in the University who canimplement a University-wide policy."

Members of the Living Wage Campaign will meetwith Epps today at 2 p.m. right before the rallybut say they expect little to come from thislast-minute effort.

Sweatshop protesters say the rally follows onthe heels of similar protests at universities suchas Georgetown and Duke. Yesterday, Harvard alsoissued a letter in response to an Ivy League-wideultimatum issued by protesters Feb. 26. Protesterssaid the letter did not meet their demands.

Members of the coalition say they are callingon the University to create a women's center oncampus, to better train Sexual Assault/SexualHarassment residential advisers, and to organize amandatory orientation for all first-years onsexual assault.

Recommended Articles

Advertisement