Harvard Resident Tutor Sues University Over Unpaid Wages, Sick Leave

Harvard College resident tutor Mikaila Smith filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the University on Friday on behalf of resident tutors, proctors, and House aides, alleging that Harvard violated Massachusetts labor law by not paying them wages.

Resident tutors, proctors, and House aides receive housing and — in the case of proctors and tutors — dining hall access in exchange for their work, but no stipend, salary, or hourly wage. Some receive modest stipends for taking on added responsibilities, but none are paid for their day-to-day work.

In the 29-page complaint, filed in Middlesex Superior Court, Smith’s lawyers alleged that the University violated the Massachusetts Wage Act, which requires employers to pay employees weekly or biweekly, as well as the state’s minimum wage law, which deems any wage below $15 per hour as “oppressive and unreasonable.”

“Although Harvard employs and reaps the benefit of these essential workers, it has chosen to exempt itself from all of the laws that protect workers in Massachusetts – including, most importantly, the basic requirement to pay employees for their labor,” they wrote.

Although resident staff live in on-campus housing and some eat in student dining halls, the lawyers wrote that state law caps how much an employer may count lodging and meals toward the minimum wage: $35 a week for a single room and $2.25 per meal. The law requires that employees accept housing and meals voluntarily.

Smith’s lawyers also alleged that the University violated the state’s earned sick time law, which requires employers with 11 or more employees to provide workers a set amount of sick time. The lawyers alleged that Harvard has provided residential workers no paid or unpaid sick time.

“Any work relief granted to sick Residential Workers is purely at the discretion of their faculty dean or yard dean,” they wrote.

A spokesperson for Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.

Smith, the Kirkland House Fellowships Tutor, wrote in a statement that while she loves her job, she believed the lack of monetary compensation was unjust.

“In my time as a tutor, I’ve seen firsthand the vital role that residential workers such as tutors, proctors, and house aides play in the student experience at Harvard. I believe that it is unjust that we are not compensated,” Smith wrote.

Friday’s filing allows the court to begin the months-long class action certification process, which would allow damages to be paid to all members of the affected group without each filing a separate suit.

Smith’s lawyers are asking that the class include all “current and former residential workers, including resident tutors, proctors, and house aides, in undergraduate student residences who have performed services for Harvard without receiving fair wages or earned sick time.”

Proctors and resident tutors function as advisers to undergraduates in freshmen dorms and upperclassmen Houses, respectively. House aides, who also live in the Houses, provide administrative support for community events hosted by faculty deans.

If Smith wins the suit, the University would be liable for awarding proctors, resident tutors and house aides three times the amount it would have paid them in wages and sick pay in the past three years.

The complaint comes about a year after resident tutors were told the College would begin strictly enforcing a policy requiring tutors to hold a separate University affiliation. The proposed class action would include tutors with and without such affiliations, but Smith’s lawyers cited the policy in describing her role. Smith herself has no separate affiliation with Harvard.

“Faculty deans and yard deans have the discretion to disregard those criteria and have employed many proctors and resident tutors who do not meet the eligibility requirements,” they wrote.

Faculty deans informed resident tutors of the change in in-person meetings last fall. It is poised to force dozens of tutors out of the role when it takes effect at the end of this academic year.

In a May interview, Harvard College Dean David J. Deming took responsibility for the decision, citing, “a sense of wanting to connect the job more deeply to the academic mission.”

Residential workers last pushed to receive a stipend in 2024, as part of a campaign to form their own union, the Harvard Union of Residential Advisors. Resident tutors and proctors voted 151-88 against unionizing that April, after internal fractures emerged within HURA, and House aides voted 14-6 against.

But during the process of organizing that election, Harvard agreed that resident tutors and proctors were employees, an agreement Smith’s lawyers are now citing as evidence that Massachusetts labor law applies.

Harvard faces at least one other lawsuit over its labor practices. In 2025, former employees Anna Weick and Ira E. Stoll ’94, a former Crimson president, sued the University, alleging that it violated state law by not paying employees for unused personal time when they leave Harvard. The University has argued that personal time does not qualify as a wage. That lawsuit remains ongoing.

—Staff writer José Luis Ortega Castro can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at sbc.23. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.

—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ser.85. Follow her on X @summerellenrose.