OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web points to this remarkable Harvard Crimson editorial:
Dean’s office, and all 12 House Masters, a new student service is sweeping onto campus. Dormaid, founded by Michael E. Kopko ’07, is a cleaning service that allows students to avoid the perennial problem of dingy, smutty, questionably-habitable rooms. But as appealing as the thought of a perpetually tidy room may be, . . . Dormaid could potentially mess up as many rooms as it cleans. By creating yet another differential between the haves and have-nots on campus, Dormaid threatens our student unity. . . .
A service like Dormaid can bring many levels of awkwardness into this picture. For example, do two people sharing a double split the cost? What if one wants the service and the other does not? What if one cannot afford it? Hiring someone to clean dorm rooms is a convenience, but it is also an obvious display of wealth that would establish a perceived, if unspoken, barrier between students of different economic means.
Of course, the cleanliness of one’s room is a lot less obvious than the clothes one wears; and cost-splitting concerns arise when friends decide what restaurants to go to together, or even which ski trips or the like to take together. How about mandatory uniforms for Harvard students, then? Or a ban on off-campus eating? Or a prohibition on pleasure trips? How about barring students from buying nice things for their dorm rooms?
In any event, it looks like the fanatical pursuit of equality is striving for a new equality — the equality of filth.
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