“The vast majority of graduate students are not at elite universities,” Freeman said. “The story that gets the most attention is the fancy school, the private school. Columbia’s not different from any private employer, and private employers hate unions.”
“The narrative at elite universities is that they’re students, not workers,” he added. “They’d always argue that there’s a mentor-mentee relationship. You don’t hear that anymore, since that language is kind of sullied by stories of sexual exploitation and harassment.”