Boston Mayor Withdraws From Harvard Law Commencement to Avoid Crossing Picket Line
“The strike began in April after negotiations between Harvard and the graduate student union failed to produce a new labor agreement.”
She’s just so stunning and brave. This is pathetic.
Campus Reform reports:
Boston mayor withdraws from Harvard Law commencement amid union strike
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu withdrew from a Harvard Law School event after deciding not to cross a graduate student union picket line, placing Harvard University’s labor dispute at the center of commencement-week activities.
Wu, a Harvard alumna, had been scheduled to participate in the university’s Law School Class Day ceremony. The withdrawal drew national attention after the Harvard Graduate Students Union-UAW publicly celebrated the decision as support for its ongoing strike.
The union announced in a press release that Wu “will stand with Harvard’s striking student workers” and would not cross the picket line to attend the event.
Approximately 30 striking graduate student workers picketed near Holmes Field during the May 28 ceremony after Wu had already withdrawn from the event. The ceremony proceeded without the mayor and instead featured student speakers discussing public service, legal ideals, and issues surrounding the labor dispute.
The strike began in April after negotiations between Harvard and the graduate student union failed to produce a new labor agreement. Union leaders have sought to increase pressure on the university during commencement season by organizing demonstrations around graduation-related events.
While the union portrayed Wu’s withdrawal as solidarity with striking workers, the mayor’s office offered a different explanation.
According to Inside Higher Ed, a spokesperson for Wu said the mayor was “deeply disappointed” that she could not participate and had sought alternatives that would allow her to recognize graduates without crossing the picket line. The spokesperson said those alternatives were rejected.
The spokesperson also said Wu opposed picketing commencement activities focused on students, even as she chose not to cross the line herself.
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Conservatives can’t speak, and progressives won’t.
Pretty soon, graduating classes are going to have to give up commencement speeches entirely, and replace them with a half hour of TikTok videos on a big screen.
Having been one of those grad students 50 years ago, I can’t imagine them forming a union and picketing to try to shut down events. You become a grad student for the educational opportunity it offers, not as a regular job. And if you don’t want the slot, there are plenty of others who will take it.
The deal was always that you would teach small recitation sections or lab sections, and in return you would get a tuition waiver, insurance etc, and a pittance to live on. The size of the pittance depended on how many sections you taught. I taught enough sections that I could live on my pittance.
What the grad students really should be complaining about is how many years they have to work as indentured servants before getting their degree. I finished in five years (which was average), but I had to really twist my adviser’s arm. I knew several 8th year and 9th year grad students, and the joke was that their adviser would either have to graduate them or give them a Bar Mitzvah.
Wow. What subject was your specialty? What university? It’s not for nothing that that sort of abuse is called “the plantation.”
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