Rotating through spots No. 1 through No. 5 on Niche.com’s top party universities, Tulane University is widely regarded as a “work-hard, play-hard” institution with a heavy price tag. Alcohol, partying, drugs and excessive spending are the symptoms of a Southern school with affluent Northerners as students. Yet, the disconnect between this extravagant lifestyle and the university’s service workers — those who clean up after the students — is largely unaddressed. 

Tulane employs thousands of service workers to assist the university with its dining, cleaning and day-to-day logistics. The service workers ensure that university life is as smooth as possible for the students. Service workers are not only underrecognized by the university; they are also the victims of Tulane students’ privilege, subtle distaste or blatant disrespect.   

When asked about her experience working in a Tulane dining facility, an anonymous worker explained that Tulane students’ privilege is palpable.  

“I do definitely feel like they are privileged. If anything happens, they want to call their mom and they act as if other people aren’t in the room when they are in the room,” the anonymous service worker said. “I think they know exactly what’s going on with their privilege, they just don’t care about it, or anything… They act like we just aren’t there.”   

During our conversation, the worker expressed feeling ignored by students. They explained that a party lifestyle was a characteristic of many students they serve.   

“I think that Tulane students do party a lot,” the anonymous service worker said. “I think that as hard as they party, they should work.”  

The privilege of attending a prestigious and costly university isn’t inherently wrong, nor is the active social culture at Tulane. Students have every right to embrace the environment they chose, including the lifestyle that comes with it. It feels tone-deaf, however, to ignore the disparity between the student lifestyle and the people employed to serve them.  

It’s an uncomfortable and rather ugly truth to uncover that many service workers feel belittled, ignored and disrespected by the students that they are employed to care for.   

This unspoken divide is difficult to face, as it highlights disrespect, ignorance and privilege that persist. Addressing this issue begins with acknowledgment. How can we accept that the problem should be fixed, if we fail to even discuss its existence?