But unlike the happy-go-lucky protestors on the west coast and Pusey in 1969, PSLM members have shown an astounding degree of deliberation and strategy in their decision to escalate.

PSLM made their decision after long deliberation, four-hour-long meetings and the failure of their previous attempts to meet with and compromise with University officials. They planned this action carefully, down to the detail of not carrying in their keys in case they could be construed as weapons. In no way can they be seen as vacationers, or face the accusation that the Harvard strikers did in 1969 that they were just trying to extend spring break.

Still, PSLM faces the most opposition not from an angry president, but from their annoyed peers. Their tactics are dismissed as childish grandstanding. Compromise and deliberation, that’s how Harvard students want conflicts resolved. Unfortunately, it is the Harvard students who dismiss PSLM’s actions out of hand who are being childish, and it is they who are displaying a lack of deliberation.

There are only two good reasons not to join in the PSLM’s cause. The first is because you disagree with their goal—the living wage. The second is because you disagree with their methods. You wish conflicts could be settled at boardroom tables or around dining hall tables. But when one group (students and low-paid workers) have so little power, and the other (the Corporation) has so much, there is no real discourse.

At the very least, Harvard students not in support of the strike should refrain from charging their classmates with silliness. This attitude betrays a lack of intellectual engagement with the discourse of protest and institutional change. This behavior is unbecoming of a Harvard student. A decision not to support PSLM on intellectual or moral grounds is noble; a dismissal of their actions is both ignoble and unjust. It smacks of the same disgusting arrogance with which the University treats students involved in the presidential search to the living wage campaign. We can do better than to treat each other that way.

It’s 4 a.m. now, and the next shift silently rolls up on bicycles and appears out of the shadows. Cigarettes are lit, conversation ensues, and finally, the huddled group starts to get up, stretch and prepare for bed. Some will come back with sleeping bags to wait out the night, others will be back in another two, four or six hours. They say goodnight to the cop outside, displaying conduct becoming of Harvard students to the last, and disappear back into the night.

Who knows how long they will be there, fighting for what they believe in. Who knows how long they will have to wait for the support or recognition of their fellow students.

Meredith B. Osborn ’02 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.