COLUMN: Humanity, not profits

From Ronald Kim's, "The Wretched of the Earth," Fall '00 From Ronald Kim's, "The Wretched of the Earth," Fall '00The recent activism of the United Students Against Sweatshops has done much to bring the issue of labor abuse to the attention of the Penn community. But while much of the debate has centered around the moral bankruptcy of corporations that engage in unfair labor practices, the real issue is less about globalization or oppression of the powerless than about Penn's ability to live up to its own educational priorities. But regardless of the reasons, there is a broad societal consensus that sweatshop labor violates some civilized norm, just as it did a century ago. Even such eminently mainstream entertainment figures as Jay Leno have shown no mercy in their ceaseless mockery of Kathie Lee Gifford's line of clothes, specially handmade for your department store by starving children in Guatemala. The issue underlying this week's series of protests, then, is not whether sweatshop labor is right or wrong. It is where Penn's priorities stand when human rights and social justice come into conflict with the pursuit of profit. As a private university, Penn shares many similarities with any American company. Because it is not supported by the state, the University seeks to increase its revenues, build up its endowment and invest its money wisely. This is not simply a grudging concession to reality; this is how Penn can afford to support and improve all of its many programs and schools and achieve national recognition. Unlike corporations, however, the accruement of wealth is not supposed to be Penn's main objective. Penn's mission, according to what I've read, is to provide its students with an education that allows them to think critically about the world and to have respect for and be open to learning. I don't think many readers will find that too controversial. But what happens when this idealistic educational mission leads to a decrease in potential revenue? One hopes that University administrators make decisions that support Penn's academic goals as often as possible, even if they are not always financially preferable. In cases of economic necessity, the University would not hesitate to sacrifice only as little academic funding or support as necessary. After all, with more money, one can always fund more professors, seminars and classrooms. Instead, at Penn as well as other "elite institutions of higher learning," the unmistakable recent trend has been toward placing profit above all other considerations. Even leaving aside issues such as the privatization of University staff by Trammell Crow -- which one could view as a purely economic matter -- Penn has often acted against its own educational interests. In my own limited experience as a graduate student, I've seen Penn drag its heels on providing adequate funding for students to attend important conferences, even hesitate to admit the number of students necessary to maintain viable departments. The recent proposal to eliminate Penn's off-campus modem pool in favor of a private contractor -- at great inconvenience to students and faculty -- is only the latest indicator of skewed priorities. Seen in this light, Penn's membership in the Orwellian-named Fair Labor Association takes on added meaning. By refusing to withdraw from this organization -- infamous throughout human rights and labor activist circles for closing its eyes to even the grossest abuses in working conditions -- and join the Worker Rights Consortium, Penn is sending a message: Not only does it implicitly support such abusive practices, but it places unlimited corporate-style greed above even the general consensus of its own students and employees. There are those who will say that Penn could lose significant profits if it could no longer contract its officially licensed clothes to companies using sweatshop labor. And they're right. But by not withdrawing from the tarnished FLA -- or being more responsive to the calls of its own students -- Penn is necessarily disgracing its own educational mission. And that's a price no true university should pay.