The fact the administration has notably refrained from the kind of public attacks the unions regularly engage in points to its position as the real defender of student interests in this dispute. Administrators, on the other hand, work to safeguard the interests of students while securing the future of the University, of which students, not workers, remain at the center. Student sympathizers, in their quest to play proletariat for a few years during college, fail to make this important connection. They do not consider worker motives and how they would translate into higher tuition and poorer services. Although their supposed objective is to improve the University from within, labor sympathizers are naive to imagine that pressure tactics such as these will result in anything but the maligning of the University in the public sphere.
Actions carry consequences.
The ultimate import, intended or not, of such tactics will be a thoroughly tarnished reputation. When they engage in deliberate acts of slander, the unions and their cohorts ensure the diminution of Yale's very public persona. Their actions are an affront to students, faculty and administrators who work hard to safeguard a long-standing tradition of excellence. As a senior about to graduate, I cannot express how disheartened I am by the recent onslaught. For four years Yale has provided a unique confluence of scholarship and diversity that is continually enhanced by the attention the University regularly lavishes on its students.