Air Horns Outside a 250-Student Midterm: Harvard's Grad Union Strike Collides With an Exam, and the Deans Speak for the First Time

More than 20 striking members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers chanted and sounded air horns outside Emerson Hall last Thursday while about 250 undergraduates took a midterm exam inside, The Harvard Crimson reported. The episode drew the first public comments on the strike from the College's top deans.

The exam

The exam was for GenEd 1116, "Biomedical Ethics and History," taught by David S. Jones. Some students wore earplugs provided by the course or noise-canceling headphones, the Crimson reported.

"Especially during those first 20, 30 minutes, it was just very hard to concentrate and read through the prompts and respond," Brianna DiMauro, a sophomore, told the Crimson. Another student said she wore two layers of hearing protection "but I could still hear everything." Others said they were not bothered, and several benefited from 15 extra minutes Jones gave the class.

In the days before the exam, Jones wrote to students on the course site that union leadership had contacted him about planned activity, the Crimson reported. "We have ordered 100 pairs of earplugs for Thursday (first come, first served—we'll talk about the ethics of such rationing on 11/17)," he wrote. On exam morning, he told students: "HGSU has the right to picket and the right to make noise. They do not have the right to block people coming and going from the building."

Why the exam wasn't moved

Jones said he tried to move the midterm, but the Faculty of Arts and Sciences registrar told him no other campus space could hold the class, according to the Crimson. "I could have rescheduled the exam, but when there's an open-ended strike and the last strike lasted six weeks, I have no reason to believe that the campus will be less strike-involved Tuesday or Thursday or any time," he said.

"You can't move an exam to take home because take home exams aren't worth the paper they're written on right now," he added. His alternative, canceling the exam and shifting its 15 percent of the grade to the final, would have been "unfair stress to put on the students in December."

Some students disagreed. "I think most people and myself agree that he should have moved the midterm," DiMauro said. Jones responded in a statement: "I don't know why students think Harvard has an endless stock of huge teaching spaces. I tried to move and could not."

The deans and the union

Harvard College Dean David J. Deming and Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh said in a joint statement to the Crimson: "A Harvard College midterm exam was disrupted today by picketers using megaphones and air horns. We hope that everyone in our community can agree that students have the right to take their exams without disruption." Neither had commented publicly on the strike before, the Crimson reported.

HGSU Vice President Evan Lemire said members planned the Emerson Hall picket before learning about the exam, though they knew a large GenEd class met there, and that members who used noisemakers did so outside the Yard, in line with Harvard's Campus Use Rules, according to the Crimson.

HGSU spokesperson Bonnie Jin said the union agreed students should be able to take exams without disruption. "HGSU is in an active labor dispute with Harvard University. Our workers are on strike for fair pay and safe work, and University administrators cannot expect business as usual," she wrote. "The sooner our workers receive a fair contract, the sooner we can return to work and to our educational mission." Jin said Jones was told about the picket two days in advance.

The strike

HGSU, which represents more than 4,000 workers, began its second walkout of the year on Tuesday, Oct. 27, after contract talks stalled, the Crimson reported. It comes about five months after the union ended a 40-day spring strike, its longest, without a contract. Members also picketed at Sanders Theatre, Zimmer Hall and the Longwood campus.

The union lists three core demands: better wages, protections for non-citizen workers, and independent processes for harassment and discrimination complaints. In an email to Harvard affiliates, Provost John F. Manning and Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick called the strike "unwarranted" and said the two sides had already reached agreement on the issues the union cites, according to the Crimson.

Several courses have changed assignments or moved online because of the strike, the Crimson reported. Jones is keeping his course on schedule, including running 10 sections on Thursday and Friday.

What is not known

Neither side has announced new bargaining dates or an end date for the walkout in the reports reviewed.