Sweep Dormaid Under the Carpet
The Times runs
its take on the Dormaid story—"At Harvard, An Unseemly Display of Wealth or Merely a Clean Room?"
The article hinges on whether Dormaid is a legitimate campus business or a way of reinforcing class distinctions at Harvard.
Key quote from a Dormaid founder: <<"There's so many ways in which on our campus you're able to display wealth in so much more obvious a fashion than having someone quietly clean your room," said Mr. Eisenberg, 20, a psychology major from Westfield, N.J.. He said class differences were evident in clothes, cars and entertainment, even in a campus laundry service that would wash, fold and place students' clothes in a "very noticeable" yellow bag.>>
I love the use of the word "quietly" there. Doesn't he actually mean "meekly"?
Harvard has made a huge mistake in sanctioning Dormaid. Everything about it appalls: that it allows students to pay others to pick up after themselves; that if one roommate can afford it and the other can't, Dormaid will happily accept money from the former and leave the latter's room untouched (as co-founder Michael Kopko hilariously puts it, "
to avoid stratifying people, if one roommate does not want the service, DormAid will clean only the rooms of those who do"); that one reason Dormaid was approved was that the founders agreed to appoint one student to "oversee" the adult cleaning crews.
Forgive my class consciouness, but this is exactly how Harvard students are trained to oversee the workers of the world.
If you don't believe me, just look at the picture that accompanies the article.
The photo shows a white male student—it's an unfortunate bit of symbolism that he happens to be German—happily striding through his (filthy) apartment, while below him two women, one black and one Latina, are literally on their knees cleaning.
But Harvard is not the only elite institution which has a problem with classism. Guess which participants in this debate the
Times didn't think important enough to interview?
It's almost too easy: the people doing the cleaning.
Or were they afraid that their boss, the Harvard sophomore, would fire them if they spoke to the press?
