One Harvard employee, who spoke about his experience on the condition of anonymity, says he is “extremely disappointed” with the office’s services.

Last year, the employee received what he alleges was an “unfair” letter of reprimand from his supervisor, containing false accusations.

After appealing to the Office of Human Resources (OHR), he says he was advised to accept the letter and “move on.”

Unsatisfied with this outcome, the employee subsequently took the dispute to the Ombuds Office.

“I expected a neutral person to mediate, but my impression was that my particular unit at Harvard had already contacted [Cummings] and she already knew why I was there,” he says. “She repeated almost word for word what I was told by the OHR unit. I thought the whole point of the ombudsperson was an informal thing where they would mediate as an outsider.”

The employee says that he provided the Ombuds Office with documents supporting his claim before the meeting, but that Cummings had not read them.

“Rather than rescheduling a meeting at a later date so that the Ombuds Office would have time to read the documentation completely, I was given a patronizing lecture about ‘knowing my place’ and told to ‘mind my own business,’” he says. “I was then abruptly informed that the meeting was over.”

A Harvard Law School (HLS) professor became interested in the employee’s case and helped him obtain legal counsel, who then contacted the University. The letter of reprimand was eventually withdrawn.

“The time and money expended in this effort were substantial,” the employee adds. “It is my understanding that the Ombuds Office was created by President [Lawrence H. Summers] precisely to prevent this kind of waste of everyone’s time and money.”

Aaron Bartley, a union organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 615, which represents many Harvard custodians, says that workers in his union are unclear about the kinds of problems that they should bring to the ombudsperson.

Other workers say that they don’t think that the Ombuds Office is as neutral as the University claims.

Thompson E. Potter Jr., a faculty secretary at HLS since 1986 and a member of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, says the ombudsperson is only “window dressing.”

“The fact that the custodians and other unionized workers are at this point demonstrating and having to publicly air their many grievances with Harvard management…clearly indicates that the University ombudsperson in practice and prospect is really at best merely University sidewalk superintendant,” writes Potter, who says he has not had any contact with the office, in an e-mail.

The Working World

Though Ehrenreich does not personally handle workers’ complaints and disputes—a job delegated to Cummings—one of the main reasons the position of ombudsperson was created was to resolve such conflicts.