Berkeley's Betrayal - Public Sociology @ Berkeley - University of ...

These conditions are not, of course, unique to Berkeley. All over the country, students havebegun a dialogue with campus employees and have been learning, to their chagrin, that the flipside of what is touted as educational excellence is often economic misery. At such diverse placesas Harvard, Miami University of Ohio, Virginia Commonwealth University, Yale, the Universityof North Carolina, Mt. Holyoke and scores of others, students have been organizing in support ofcampus workers’ demands for better pay, union recognition, and more respectful treatment.What these students are saying, in effect, is: We’re not comfortable learning in a classroomthat was cleaned at night by someone who may not earn enough to pay rent. We can’t concentrateon preparing to join the professional elite while all around us people remain stuck at thebottom of the occupational hierarchy. We lose our appetite when the cafeteria food is preparedand served by people who have trouble feeding their own children.This growing campus movement for economic justice comes, unfortunately, at a time ofgrowing financial constraints on state universities. Students are being forced to pay higher tuitionevery year; many junior—and adjunct—faculty are severely underpaid themselves. What thismeans is that there is no choice now: The movement to improve the lives and working conditionsof campus employees must be part of a larger campaign to guarantee the resources for highereducation in general.But we cannot postpone the issues raised by this report. The mistreatment and underpaymentof the people who make a campus like U.C. Berkeley’s work from day to day undercut all theideals of a liberal education. You can’t have freedom of discourse in an environment where somepeople are never allowed to speak up. You can’t pretend to value community when some membersare treated as if they are disposable.The purpose of this report, then, is nothing less than to restore the conscience—and save thesoul—of a great university.2