Word: sweatshop
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...sweatshop labor to produce university-logo apparel has in recent months inspired a burst of student activism across the country...
...people coordinating the sweatshop protests aren't the first to think of this strategy. The storming of administration buildings has been part of the campus protester's handbook since the mid-'60s, when anti-war students discovered how powerfully symbolic seizing the heart of a university could be. Harvard has its own famous example; the University Hall takeover by members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in spring 1969, the first and most violent of the building seizures on campus during the Vietnam era. Other takeovers followed, including a weeklong occupation of Mass. Hall in April 1972 by students...
...surprise, then, that the leaders of the sweatshop protests have decided to revive this strategy. Building takeovers, like most of the conventions of the '60s anti-war movement, hold an undeniable nostalgic appeal, especially now when student apathy seems to be hitting new highs. We imagine the protesters of the '60s as ideologically pure, people who renamed University Hall after Che Guevara--and meant it. It seems the protesters today are trying to prove they have the same zeal. The protesters at Georgetown certainly didn't decide to take over O'Donovan's office solely to evoke the radical romanticism...
...goal in this situation--to alleviate poor working conditions for sweatshop laborers--is an admirable one, just as ending the University's involvement with Vietnam was in 1969. And it's all too tempting to argue that the plight of oppressed workers in the Third World justifies whatever means it takes to end Harvard insignia apparel makers' use of sweatshop labor...
...fair, the people behind the anti-sweatshop movement at Harvard have given no real indication that they will follow the lead of their colleagues at other campuses. Hopefully, they won't; ending the University's involvement with sweatshop labor is a noble goal, but not one that justifies violent recourses like taking over buildings. Seizing University Hall would be as unwise a tactic...