STAFF EDITORIAL: Sweatshops in the limelight

The protesters in College Hall have performed a valuable service by bringing the issue of sweatshops of the fore. What has transpired since is nothing short of remarkable. In the legitimate exercise of their First Amendment rights, members of United Students Against Sweatshops have succeeded in bringing the plight of Third World laborers to Penn's campus agenda. To be sure, the issue remains hopelessly complicated. We simply do not know who is in the right. Both of the monitoring organizations being considered -- the Fair Labor Association, of which Penn is a member, and the Worker Rights Consortium, which has the protesters' support -- have conspicuous advantages and disadvantages. Given the available information, we cannot tell which organization would better uphold the code of conduct currently being developed by an ad hoc University task force. This is not an issue of black and white, but of infinite shades of gray. What we are sure of is that last year, as anti-sweatshop rallies and sit-ins rocked campuses across the country -- prompting major changes at other universities -- the issue languished in relative obscurity at Penn, relegated to the fringe of campus debate. With an enthusiasm that puzzled many, a small but dedicated group of non-violent protesters changed that. They succeeded in putting an issue that deserves to be widely discussed on the campus agenda. We applaud the protesters not because we are convinced they are right, but because we are sure they have, through their activism, opened up an important discussion.