If you did not support the campaign for a living wage, you should feel guilty. If you never discussed or even thought about the living wage, you should be ashamed of yourself.
The hunger strike, which officially ended last Thursday, was a resounding victory for both the student activists and the workers for whom they were fighting. The administration’s decision to implement a wage of $13 by July and $14 by 2007 shows that student activism is alive and well at Georgetown. The catalyst was a small but determined group of students, who persevered amidst a student body growing more and more apathetic and conservative each day.
The fight for a living wage was based on the principle that people should help each other. Although this seems simplistic, it is an idea that seems to have been cast aside in favor of callous pragmatism and fiscal responsibility. Many arguments against the living wage, including that of the University, questioned the viability of raising wages for contract workers. Student opponents wondered where Georgetown, an already financially challenged institution, could possibly find the money to achieve this living wage. The fact of the matter is that Georgetown loses over $20 million a year thanks to the Medical Center, yet still manages to find the money to finance innumerable construction projects, events and extraneous administrative positions.
Why should students worry about University finances anyway? Georgetown employs entire office buildings full of people whose sole function is to sell the soul of the University to the highest bidder. The administration certainly doesn’t need students pondering the budget and worrying about the implications of a wage increase on the University’s financial situation. What this university does need is a social conscience.
Pragmatism and fiscal responsibility are not the business of our demographic; the nation’s youth. Our function is to act as the conscience that America so desperately needs; to make sure that the constant search for equality and social justice is not stifled by an acceptance of the status quo. If we don’t promote idealism, no one will.
And sadly, students seem to be renouncing idealism in favor of the brain eroding, spirit crushing conservative movement. The rising tide of conservatism among young people is alarming. The pull towards this bastion of evil is strong and extremely tempting, because it’s the easy way out. No need to have ideas, fight for causes or champion the less fortunate. It is much easier to write off the hunger strike than to stop thinking about yourself for a few minutes and consider the plight of the less fortunate. It is pathetic that the entire student body did not attend the living wage rallies held each day in Red Square. Worse, it is horrifying that the hunger strikers were lambasted in student publications for being too idealistic in their demands.
We should have rallied behind the hunger strikers, not because their proposal was financially sound or because they offered practical solutions to achieving a living wage, but because it was the right thing to do. We as a demographic have gotten too cynical. We scoff at elections, because we’ve come to think that our votes don’t really matter. We are disinterested in both international and domestic politics because we’ve decided that there’s no way we can change the status quo.
But it hasn’t always been like this, and it doesn’t have to be like this. There’s got to be some way to revive idealism and to reanimate the youth of America. The solution lies in impassioning yourself. Care about something, it doesn’t matter what. But it’s even easier than that: care that someone else cares about something. The next time there’s a protest on campus, find out why. Show the protesters you respect what they’re doing. Put aside your desperate need to profess views that make sense and embrace unbridled idealism. Save this country from its descent into conservatism and apathy.
The Living Wage Campaign represented all that is right and good about this University, and opposing it only affirms the backwards and unfair practices perpetrated both at Georgetown and in this country in general.
