Note to the Wall Street-bound: Be the Change You Want to See

As a 1L, it’s tough to think about life beyond the week ahead, let alone next semester. But a recent article in the Harvard Crimson drew my attention to the nebulous world of life after graduation.

In “Boycott Wall Street,” David Weinfeld takes issue with the large number of Harvard undergraduates lured towards investment banking by promises of big money from on-campus recruiters. Weinfeld argues that students should heed the lessons of past graduates who are unhappily enriching the already rich (and contributing to “main street” rage against his home institution).

Weinfeld ultimately proposes that “you don’t have to occupy Wall Street. Just boycott it during the job hunt.”

As appealing as it may be, Weinfeld’s rallying-cry deprives this country of precisely the type of people we need working on Wall St., namely, those who would take him seriously.

Change comes from a multiplicity of sources. For example, in this week’s property class, my section learned of an internal advocate’s power to affect change through our examination of consumer advocacy efforts in landlord-tenant law. Prior to the 1960’s, there was no requirement for a landlord to supply a habitable residence. At that time, the law protected landlords who rented out apartments with severe water damage, rodent infestations, faulty electricity, and other conditions that are now prohibited in almost all circumstances. This gave rise to slumlords whose goal was profit without regard for the welfare of their tenants. But not all landlords were slumlords.

In the 1966 Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Business and Commerce for the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, Senator Robert Kennedy heatedly interrogated a Washington slumlord named Nathan Habib. At the end of Habib’s testimony an elderly gentleman named Maurice Rosenbloom asked to address the subcommittee. Rosenbloom was also a landlord, but unlike Habib, he cared for the welfare of his tenants and kept his building up to code- despite the tenant destruction that ultimately forced him to sell his property. During his testimony, Rosenbloom made a point of contradicting Habib’s statements and demonstrated that landlords were aware of safety violations. Rosenbloom was under no obligation to testify, nor was he asked to address the issue of whether landlords knew of such violations. Rather, he felt morally obligated to do so and helped create a new legal standard based on concern for human dignity.

Rosenbloom could have easily stayed home that day- the point is he did not. Likewise, it would be easy to simply avoid Wall St, however the challenge is changing it.

The students who care enough to consider Weinfeld’s call to boycott should instead take advantage of their  time in school to study corporate responsibility. They should contemplate how greed, corruption, and contempt for the less fortunate harms all Americans and destroys lives. Indeed, for all those BC Eagles interested in working in finance, you need not be ashamed. But use your three years at BC Law to understand the obligations that business has to society and the ramifications of unchecked corporate greed.

Everyone enticed by the opportunity to work on Wall St. owes it to themselves, this nation, and their school to consider how they can promote reform while restoring this country to where it belongs. In short, be a Rosenbloom.