We read the Prince's profile of Bob Durkee with great interest. As leaders of the anti-sweatshop campaign started by Students for Progressive Education and Action, we spent many hours in his office trying to promote our cause, and are gratified to hear that he came to agree with much of our platform.
Unfortunately, a factual error in the article misrepresented the extent to which we came to be in agreement. It is decidedly not true that we pushed the University to join the Fair Labor Association; in actuality, we were surprised and upset to return from spring break in 1999 and find out that Durkee had signed Princeton up for the FLA over our stated objections. Especially in light of all the revelations this year about the extent to which corporate malfeasance can occur unchecked and in secret, our concerns about the FLA's over-reliance on self-regulation by companies like Nike seem justified.
As the 'Prince' amply documented at the time, we lobbied for the University to consider alternative monitoring mechanisms such as the Workers Rights Consortium, which was intended to build grass-roots abilities to curb sweatshop abuses. Students at several other major universities succeeded in persuading their administrations to drop out of the FLA and join the WRC, because of doubts about the effectiveness of the former.
As recent alumni, we are proud to have graduated from Princeton, but we are not proud of the conditions under which collegiate and other apparel is produced. The day has not yet arrived when anti-sweatshop activists can purchase a Princeton sweatshirt in good conscience.
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