ACADEME TODAY Monday, February 8, 1999
Students Occupy Georgetown President's Office to Demand Tougher Line on Sweatshops

By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Washington

Twenty-seven students occupied the office of Georgetown University's president on Friday, and remained there as of Sunday evening, calling on the university to adopt a tougher code of conduct for clothing manufacturers authorized to use the Georgetown name.

Georgetown and 13 other universities, working with a licensing group, last year developed a proposed code of conduct for college-apparel licensees. But the Georgetown students said that those guidelines wouldn't insure that clothing carrying the Georgetown logo wouldn't be produced by sweatshop labor. The proposal would set minimum standards for the factories that produce campus apparel.

The students staging the sit-in said they wanted the university to publicly disclose the location of factories that produce official Georgetown merchandise so that human-rights groups could monitor work conditions.

University officials said that they were considering that option, but that they were also reviewing concerns that such disclosures could adversely affect competition among manufacturers. "We want to make sure that the institution investigates all of the dimensions of a complex issue," said James A. Donahue, dean of students for Georgetown and one of the administrators meeting with the protesters.

"Our disagreements are about strategies to achieving goals and not on the goals themselves," he added.

The university hasn't attempted to eject the protesting students, who were occupying two rooms that adjoin the office of the Rev. Leo J. O'Donovan, Georgetown's president.

A 31-hour sit-in at Duke University a week ago led administrators there to agree to strengthen the institution's stance on the issue.

The Georgetown sit-in appeared relaxed on Sunday, despite hand-drawn signs that read "sweat shops suck" and that accused the university of "hypocrisy and fostering social injustice." On Sunday afternoon, about 48 hours into the protest, some of the students in the president's office were asleep on the floor, some sat quietly doing homework, and others munched on bagels and discussed their strategy.

Ben Smith, a senior who was among the students protesting, said they were willing to stay put until their demands were met.

Mr. Smith acknowledged that many students wear clothing and use products made under the kinds of conditions they are protesting. But he said the university was in a unique position to "exact pressure" on clothing manufacturers to improve their labor practices. "We have something valuable that they want," he said. "Our name."

Background stories from The Chronicle:

Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education