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Comments about "Beyond sweatshops: Developing a strategy for a responsible approach"
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16 Comments on this article:
Although it would have been much easier for you, Mr. Hennessy, to strip naked, invade my room, and act like you're the second coming of Cesar Chavez/Gandhi, it is refreshing to hear your position without all that melodrama. Obviously, you care enough about this issue to write this lengthy and researched opinion. I trust that you'll do what's right and not be intimidated and bullied by overzealous students with too much outrage, too little restraint, and not hardly enough clothing.
May 29, 2007
Hello President Hennessy:
Your comments regrding next steps is greatly appreciated. I support the actions of the Sweat-Free Coalition in bringing attention to this matter. My hope is that the Code of Conduct you propose will result in the guaranteed sweat-free (GSW) designation. Unless there is due diligence on the part of Stanford's Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing, good intent is often not enough to ensure changes in institutional practice or the wave of global capitalism to wxploit cheap labor. There must be oversight and the authority to impose consequences thereby increasing the probability that change occurs.
Given the posted comments regarding the response to student activism and tactics implored by the Sweat-Free Coalition, I think you also have to address the existing dissension on the Stanford campus regarding student engagement in social justice issues. I do not believe it will serve the best interests of the faculty and student body to have criminal charges brought agaisnt student protesters. A more positive outcome could take the form of university-wide dialogue about the right to protest global worker injustices and how Stanford University can minimize its participation in international worker exploitation. Perhaps American Universities, like Stanford should avoid the global cheap labor pool and employ American workers to produce their goods.
The factories are owned not by the licensees (such as Patagonia or Nike) but by local companies... Ironically, sweatshop conditions are created primarily by a local employer abusing the rights of fellow citizens.
I hope you are not implying that Nike, Patagonia, etc. don't know about these sweatshops and that there is nothing they can do about it.
Anyway, good move.
I'm glad the Stanford has finally decided to take some action. It's not like this is a new issue, athletes were calling for Stanford to join the WRC in 2002 (http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2002/3/8/athletesStartPetition) and Hennessy has been meeting with the sweat-free campaign since January. I find it a bit too coincidental to think that Hennessy was planning to make this decision all along when he hasn't said or done anything for the past five months or past five years. I think we're seeing the results of the sit-in here. It's about time that Hennessy finally did something and I think a lot of the credit for his action should go to the students who brought this issue front and center.
This is a very well reasoned and levelheaded article. Thanks for explaining the whole situation. You're a great, and chill, president. We're lucky to have you.
Nice to have direct comments from the president and news of change. Heartening.
Well, Hennessy has acted - he says in the article that "Stanford will join two different organizations - the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) and the Fair Labor Association (FLA)." Doesn't it seem like there was a lack of foresight in publishing this in the same issue as an Op-Ed from the protesters which criticized him for continuing to remain inactive?
The "coincidence" is that this announcement comes at the time that Hennessy had offered to meet with the protestors, before they decided that their college years would be insufficiently dramatic without a naked sit-in with kitty litter. Sure they brought this issue to the fore, but that doesn't mean they acted any less like jack@sses, or that the administration was somehow cowed into giving up its diabolical plans to prop up child labor by their courage. While their recent stupidity brought the most dramatic publicity, it was their prior meetings that actually led to these changes.
you think it was conicidence that THIS meeting date was THE ONE after so many years? or is it far more likely that his concession was the result of the publicity the student action generated?
No, I'm sure that Hennessy is lying when he says that "[t]he decisions I propose here are the ones I was prepared to present to a group of student representatives in a meeting scheduled for May 29, 2007." Because he's a big, evil, smelly, capitalist pig who invests his millions of dollars from his Stanford salary in Indonesian sweatshops, donations to the GOP and killing the electric car.
I am glad that the Daily finally ran a sensible article on the issue. It is important to remember that a few sensationalist students do not represent the entire university.
Geez, you sound like the protesters streaked in front of your grandmother, urinated in your beer, and then kicked your puppy as they were being arrested. (See? We all learned how to write overblown rhetoric in PWR.)
I think it's much more likely that Hennessy decided that now was the time to act because of the publicity, as opposed to having come to a decision after *very carefully* studying the issue since 2002. I'm pleased with Hennessy for finally making this decision and with the students for bringing campus attention to it. Another coincidence you might care to note is that Hennessy began writing this article on May 17, the day students held a protest in the bookstore calling on Hennessy to act. I think Hennessy's decision and his choice to publish an explanation in the Daily are a real victory for student voice, because no matter your opinion on the efficacy of the sit-in you have to acknowledge that students were the ones who made this a major issue on campus.
This campaign was driven by the "certain students", who saw an issue of global concern and enacted upon it. They conducted numerous, and I mean, NUMEROUS, hours of research and devoted many hours to planning the events, educating the Stanford community, working with community organizers, missing classes to meet with the administration, etc, President Hennessy simply held off on this issue until now. I don't think he should be congratulated per se because sweatshops is an issue that he should care about and act upon earlier, instead of calling off student meetings, arresting students, etc. Being SweatFree seems to be targeted toward these "certain students" but this is an issue affecting all of us as global citizens. President Hennessy should be thanked for finally taken a step, but not congratulated as if he were the one who finally made the effort to make Stanford sweatfree. The students made it happen; the students drove the campaign and did all the underground work. President Hennessy simply signed after so many months of near hiatus. Also, the WRC is not enough because monitoring is not enough; factory certification and consolidation are much more effective as a further step to making university apparel sweatfree. Stanford should not wait to follow in the footsteps of other universities; it should join the DSP and become a model for other universities to follow.
this op-ed is so full of inaccuracies and straight up falsehoods! i hope the students write a response pointing them out
In his Op/Ed piece, President Hennessy said: "Indeed, some people have even objected that such attempts by institutions in the developed world to impose rules and cultural assumptions on the developing world constitute a sort of new-age colonialism." Who are "some people?" The use of references like, "some people" and their cousins, "others," "some," and "they" sounds more like Fox News than a serious statement from an academic. The statement itself is outrageous. So, who are these demagogues hiding behind the name "some people?" I am grateful for the students who have pushed the university to a place it should have been five years ago. Those arrested are in the good company of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and will carry their arrest record as a badge of courage. Well done, students!
I am very proud and appreciative of the dedicated work of the principled students who are pushing this forward. Do not be demoralized by those who dismiss and insult your efforts and intentions-as the alumnus posting above points out, you are in good company. Glad Stanford is going in the right direction here and hope it keeps going-on this and other issues of basic human rights and justice around the world. Stanford can and should be a moral leader, and it is up to the students to step up and demand that!