>This one's a bit dated, but good enough: A few years back Columbia
>students held a sit in at administration offices to demand increased
>appointments of minority faculty and the establishment of an ethnic
>studies curriculum. Several large and spirited demonstrations by
>undergrads were organized in support of these "academic" objectives.
>
>At almost the exact same time, the union representing food service workers
>staged a walk out protesting the increased subcontracting of positions to
>non-union firms and reductions in wages and health benefits. There were
>several demonstration arranged by the union in front of Lowe Library to
>protest the university's abuse of its mostly black and latino workforce.
>How many students do you think were involved in the demonstrations? Of 75
>to 100 demonstrators, no more than three were students. The
>demonstrators, the burger flippers, the cashiers, and the salad washers we
>saw every day, got essentially zero support from campus radicals many of
>whom do indeed view a victory in the institutional structure of the
>academy as a something to invest significant organizing capital in.
A friend of mine was a history grad student at Columbia at the time, and she talked to the sitters in. She said they were mostly careerists with no political agenda beyond their own advancement. Still, I'd say that broadening the curriculum and diversifying the faculty are worthy goals in themselves - do you disagree?
Times may have changed, too. How about the Harvard living wage sit-in? The Johns Hopkins students pushing for a living wage for the university laundry workers? And look for a fine piece about labor organizing at Yale by list lurker Kim Phillips-Fein in the forthcoming issue of The Nation.
Doug