He said the student activists are unreasonably fixated on the concept of a living wage as the only way to benefit Harvard workers.
"The living wage is a great symbol," he said. "But there are so few workers who are actually below the standard.
About 400 out of more than 13,000 Harvard employees are paid less than $10 an hour, according to a press release from the Harvard News Office yesterday afternoon.
Grogan said that the recommendations of the committee last spring, which were the result of 13 months of research, would be more beneficial in the long term than a salary increase to $10.25 per hour.
"The committee felt its recommendations would be far more powerful than the students' proposal," Grogan said yesterday. "They expressly rejected the students' suggestion. They had a number of opportunities to argue and the committee said, 'This isn't a good idea.'"
This sort of essential difference in philosophy is not something that a sit-in can change, Grogan said.
"It's an intellectual disagreement, not with the goals but with how to get there," Grogan said.
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