Word: speech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...speech to more than 200 supporters at yesterday's rally, Elizabeth E. Ruddick '88-89, of the Phillips Brooks House (PBH) Committee for Economic Change, echoed Bonin's criticism...
During her speech, Ruddick said the University intimidates staff members by asking their immediate supervisors to spread an anti-union message. She also said the administration misrepresents the facts about unions to its employees. As an example, Ruddick said some long-standing employees had been told they would lose their senior status under a union contract...
Instead of storming University Hall, Harvard protesters now submit reputable reports on the University's governance structure. Rather than fire-bombing offices, they campaign for pro-divestment candidates to the Board of Overseers. Forums on free speech have replaced divestment marches once so large they stopped all traffic in the square. Pseudo-political sophistication is predominant where once single-minded devotion and a willingness to risk injury and expulsion reigned...
Perhaps activists feel proud that they have won access to Harvard's decision-making process. But they have only played into the University's hands. Their demands are now filled with talk of "governance" and of "freedom" of speech and movement; virtually gone is the word "divestment." If the campus activist movement inherited anything from the sixties, it should have learned that only violent, disruptive tactics will force the Administration to change its ways...
EVERY now and then, of course they try to prove their activist heritage by blockading dinners or shouting down speakers. But then they shift the debate all of a sudden to freedom of speech and freedom of movement. If today's activists want to play it safe, avoid arrest and wear their ties to meetings with the Corporations, they can. But they cannot play the radical protester at the same time. Schizophrenia is unhealthy for anyone--including activists...