Friday, October 21 at 12:55 p.m., members of the Smith College United Student Labor Action Coalition (USLAC) and other protesting students forcibly entered the President’s House, the on-campus home of Smith’s President, where they remained for around 15 minutes before exiting under threat of disciplinary action.
Entering the President’s House was a component of a larger USLAC protest in support of dining and housekeeping workers. The sit-in was aimed to interrupt the Board of Trustees meeting scheduled for that afternoon at the conference center. When student protestors learned that the meeting was being held online due to some Trustees testing positive for COVID-19, they pivoted to the President’s house. The Board of Trustees meets twice a year, and USLAC believed some members were staying at the President’s house in anticipation of an in-person meeting.
“We want the College and the Board of Trustees to be forced to acknowledge us, because they have so much financial power at this school,” said Hannah Desrosiers ’24, press contact for USLAC. The primary demands of USLAC include that Smith College hires at least 25 more full-time staff members to address understaffing of housekeepers and in the dining halls. They want a prorated healthcare plan allowing employees to pay different amounts in proportion with their wages and menu committees where chefs can have more input on what food is made, as Smith had in the past.
Protesters walked up Lower College Lane to the President’s House, chanting and waving signs. Once the group was at the front door, one student who managed to quickly get in after knocking appeared to open the door to the President’s House for the rest of the protesters.
Students stood in the foyer of the house, and were reminded by protest leaders to be careful and not break anything. Once inside, USLAC member Amelia Wesley ’25 gave a speech outlining USLAC’s demands. In the middle of the speech, Jim Gray, Associate Vice President for Facilities and Operations, arrived and announced that the President’s House was private property and students would be subject to disciplinary action for trespassing.
Wesley was allowed to finish the speech and then most students exited the president’s house. Protesters stayed outside and continued chanting after leaving the house. Six USLAC members had elected to remain in the house and risk arrest to make their point. Eventually, those six exited too.
“We decided to leave the building because the Trustees are not in there. Our point was to pressure them into giving us an actual agreement to hire more workers, fix the healthcare and bring back the menu committees,” said Wesley, who elected to risk arrest by staying inside, to the group gathered outside the house.
At this time, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 211, the dining and housekeeping workers union, has reached a tentative agreement with the College after months of contract negotiations. The demands advanced by the Smith USLAC were demands that the union had, but they have not been met in the new agreement. However, the union workers did not know that USLAC protestors would enter the President’s House.
Barbara Solow, Assistant Director for News and Strategic Communications at Smith, said “we are aware of today’s student protest at the President’s House. We are confident that we will be able to successfully conclude contract negotiations with SEIU Local 211. Because that process has not yet ended, we have no further comment at this time.”
Inside the President’s House, Gray, too, reminded protesters that the union had reached an agreement. However, USLAC still wants the college to meet their three primary demands.
“I thought it was annoying that the Trustees weren’t there to hear it. But I was very impressed with the student organizing,” said Georgia Kermond ’25, who was at the protest. “The workers, they do so much for us, and they’re not treated right.”
USLAC promoted this event by slipping flyers under students’ doors in most houses on campus, with exceptions being Friedman Apartments and graduate student housing they could not access. They wanted to avoid more public advertisement of the event to keep the administration unaware of their plans.
“Early in the morning people dropped flyers off under my door, and I think it’s a very interesting mode of getting information spread across campus,” said Kyla Garcia ’24, who had heard about the protest, though not that they had entered the President’s House. “I really support students supporting laborers.”
“The Board of Trustees are on Smith campus, and they only come here twice a year, so we’re taking the opportunity to finally make our voices heard directly because the College has been totally ignoring so many of the demands we’ve been putting forth,” said Desrosiers. “The Trustees are not necessarily in line with a lot of our values as a school, as students, and as staff.”
This action by USLAC comes after many previous protests in support of dining and housekeeping workers in contract negotiations. Entering the president’s house was intended to bring attention to issues workers and students want addressed, but it was also an escalation of these actions, as the President’s House is private property. These many protests have made Smith’s treatment of workers a widely considered issue on campus, but with contract negotiations nearing a close, this was an eleventh-hour attempt to address some final gaps in the contract.
