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The School Newspaper of Franklin High School

Pantherbook

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The School Newspaper of Franklin High School

Pantherbook

The School Newspaper of Franklin High School

Pantherbook

Persistant Protesting at Harvard

Just last week, 70 students walked out of a popular economics class at Harvard University to join protestors at South Station, where the Occupy Boston movement was located. Now, as reported by the Boston Globe, on Wednesday night students protestors decided to “occupy” land at Harvard yard to get their point across of lowering investment practices and giving a new contract to custodians.

Even when school adminstrators locked the gates to the yard, 20 tents were already situated on the yard. Despite Suzy Nelson, dean of student life, attempting to persuade the students to relocate to a different area claiming it was to “accomodate” them, they decided not to budge.

But what most people don’t understand from the media cover on this topic, is that a good majority of the protesters met 3 or 4 times to plan the movement before it even commenced. In regards to the contracts with investors and custodians, the protest was planned so it would fall on the same day Harvard was to negotiate SEIU Local 615. SEIU Local 615 is a union for service workers, and their current contract with harvard expires this coming tuesday.

To remark on the negotiations, a spokesman for the university named Kevin Galvin released this statement. “‘‘The custodians have seen a 36 percent increase in their hourly wages since 2005, and the university already pays more to cover their health care benefits than many other institutions.We remain optimistic that the negotiations will be productive for both the University and the people who help to make it one of the world’s premier institutions for research and education.’’

Protesting is not only for workers on Wall Street or Boston, but now it seems students are getting involved. What do you think Franklin High? Would you ever set up tents on the turf or parking lot to make a point about something you find unfair?