Year of the Dragon

This is probably the kind of thing that would have started a flame war over the Pfoho email list when I was at Harvard, but since I did the grown up thing and unsubscribed when I graduated (sigh), I’m going to complain to the empty silence of the Internet.

Since Wednesday night, a tent city has been set up in the middle of Harvard Yard, as protesters sympathetic to the Occupy movement gathered there, leading university police to shut down the most central part of campus. Since then, as about 350 protesters ask for a “university for the 99%”,  the uninvolved 95% of undergrads found themselves locked away from their dorms for hours, waiting in long lines just to get home.

Occupy Harvard is making my blood boil. It’s lazy, uninformed, and, it seems to me, largely driven by a desire to participate in the cool trend of the Occupy movement in a very Harvard student way: without leaving the bubble and having to suffer the inconvenience of leaving campus to join Occupy Boston.

A lot of the criticism outside of Harvard (at least from what I have been reading on Twitter) stems from the irony of having the students of a long standing symbol of elitism and the “Amercian aristocracy” join the movement. Those people don’t get it either. The real problem that I have with the protesters is that, as they vaguely complain about inequality and corporations, they are targeting an institution that embodies the ideals they claim to be defending. 

Harvard is a corporation, yes, and it makes money, yes. But it is also a non-profit institution, and one that uses that money to provide 70% of its students with financial aid, with kids from families that make less than $65k a year getting what is essentially a free ride. I am an immigrant probably more near the bottom 10%, yet I attended Harvard on full financial aid, being treated the whole time to the most astoundingly privileged educational experience any one percenter could dream of. I had top notch professors and facilities, an amazing residential life that was equal to students of all backgrounds, experiences abroad, and yes, God forbid, even the occasional lobster dinner. Despite my family’s financial status, I had access to the best education in the world, I graduated nearly debt free, and I have been afforded a level of social mobility unthinkable in most of the world. And I was by no means a token or exception. 

I’m not arguing that Harvard is perfect. It has certainly made some questionable investment decisions, and many of the students that are part of the movement have legitimate grievances against the university that should be expressed, including the preference given to legacy applicants. But those are almost silly compared to the point about the future of the country that the Occupy movement is trying to make, and Harvard is making as honest and determined an effort to be accesible and diverse as any institution I have heard of. To “Occupy” Harvard  is a disservice to the movement in general, and to the students that have worked their asses off to be there.

 If some students really want to show their solidarity, they should stop disturbing those that are there to study, hop on the T, take that mythical ride across the river, and find a nice lawn in front of some evil corporation, bank, or government office to set up their neat little row of brand new matching tents. I understand the pain of not being a few yards away from a warm shower, and the free food at Annenberg, but, guys, who said changing the country was going to be easy? Get out of the bubble. Get out of our Yard.