Word: sds
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...promotion practices. The prejudice pervading American society generally means that. at least at the blue-collar level, blacks get poorer jobs-partly because discrimination denies them the needed job skills and education, and partly because those who judge blacks abilities harbor their own pools of prejudice. Given this, SDS's charges that black painters' helpers have been denied proper promotion undoubtedly have some basis in fact in some cases, even if many of the specific counts which SDS hurled at Dean May cannot be proven or disproven...
...real question about the SDS argument lies in the overall pattern they claim to see in these cases: that Harvard is systematically attempting to drive down the wages of its skilled employees-painters in particular-by hiring them in categories lower than those merited by their skills. It is true that Harvard has not always been the most generous of employers during the past decades: its wage scales have lagged behind those of other Boston employers. The Wilson Committee on the University and the City admitted this in its report of a year ago, and went on to note that...
RATHER than being. as SDS charges. part of such a tactic, the hiring of the painters' helpers seems to fall into a commoner category: a blundering attempt at what is nowadays known as "affirmative action"-hiring blacks and other "disadvantaged" workers. Blundering, because Harvard is now facing a situation which has happened in private industry often enough: hire blacks. put them into low-level work slots. give them little attention. look at them a year later. and you find that few, or none, have advanced...
Prevented from confronting Administrative Vice-President L. Gard Wiggins. SDS then directed the sit-in against the wrong man; the Dean of the College has no control over University employment practices. Even had SDS demonstrated against the responsible office, they were acting while negotiations on the issues were in progress. SDS has refused to acknowledge the existence of these negotiations between the Administration and the union representing the painters...
Harvard's past employment record is far from spotless: it is very likely that the University-like most huge corporations-does indeed have hiring practices which must be changed. If necessary, militant student pressure should be exerted to force the Administration to make those changes. But SDS must make a better case to get the mass student backing necessary for successful-and comprehensible-student drive. The disruption in University Hall last week contributed nothing to an understanding or resolution of the important moral and political issues involved...