“The committee has not heard one presenter who has made a positive case against the living wage, and it stops hearing testimony today,” Hoxby wrote.

Throughout the letter, she refers to fellow committee members as “the ‘principled’ people.”

Katz, who expressed surprise last night at Hoxby’s resignation, maintained that the committee has a broad range of representation.

“The committee is open to all views. We’ve heard from many different viewpoints,” Katz said. “We’ve done a lot of work trying to collect quantitative and qualitative data.”

Katz said the information released this evening will serve as a testament to the breadth of the committee’s research.

But according to Hoxby, the views of undergraduates not actively involved in the PSLM have been all but ignored.

“Anyone who speaks publicly against the Living Wage risks being demonized and the committee has chosen to offer the community no way to express its views except by making a public appearance,” Hoxby wrote.

The Katz committee website does gives students the opportunity to write the committee an e-mail—e-mails that are given little weight, according to Hoxby.

Suggestions to open this evening’s forum to more undergraduate comment were met with “scorn” at last Friday’s Katz Committee meeting, Hoxby wrote.

According to Hoxby, Matthew Milikowsky ’02 had suggested that one less student campaigning for a living wage speak at this evening’s forum.

“None of [the committee members] even voiced sympathy with Matt’s concern that we were not hearing from a cross-section of Harvard students,” Hoxby wrote.

According to Hoxby, her suggestions for an undergraduate or graduate student referendum were similarly dismissed. “One professor argued that Harvard students should not be allowed to express their views because they were such dupes that they could be hoodwinked by any competent pollster into saying what the pollster wanted them to say,” Hoxby wrote.

Milikowsky declined to comment on Friday’s meeting, but did note the value of Hoxby’s contributions.

“I’m very sorry that Professor Hoxby is resigning. I thought her presence was extremely valuable on the committee,” Milikowsky wrote in an e-mail.

Various other members of the committee did not respond to requests for comment.

PSLM member Roona Ray ’02 scoffed at the charge that the committee process favors the living wage viewpoint.

“The idea that the people are too pro-living wage is really ridiculous,” she said.

But she said the campaign for a living wage will go on undeterred.

“We’ve always said that it’s been shown that there’s a community consensus on the living wage,” Ray said. “I just hope that Hoxby’s decision doesn’t detract from the dialogue on campus.”

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.