Last fall during the Graduate Teaching Fellow strike, protesting students tried to enter office spaces in Johnson Hall and were barred. Around this time 15 years ago, protesting students did something similar and were arrested.
It was April 2000, and the anti-sweatshop movement had the nation’s attention. Kathie Lee Gifford’s Wal-Mart label had come under scrutiny for hiring 13 and 14-year-olds working 20-hour days in Honduras. United Students Against Sweatshops was mobilizing across the nation.
At University of Oregon, students were camping on Johnson Hall’s grounds at night and invading office spaces during the day until then-President Dave Frohnmayer met their demands.
Here’s what they wanted: Duck apparel was made in foreign countries in factories with questionable labor practices. Students were asking Frohnmayer to sign on with the Workers’ Rights Consortium, an independent organization that inspects working conditions. They wanted him to sign on for five years; he only wanted to sign on for one. They weren’t a recognized organization, he said, and the dues were too high.
On April 3, student activists organized a sit-in at Johnson Hall with signs. The next day, five of them–including the vice president of the student body government–were arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave the building after-hours. Six more were arrested the next day by Eugene PD, and the day after that another was arrested.
Student activists went so far as to camp out on the lawn of Johnson Hall. Students were divided on the activists’ tactics: An Emerald columnist even called the whole thing “a bad case of compensation” for their parents’ protests in the ’70s.
Frohnmayer ended up sitting down with student representatives, but a lasting decision was never reached. The State Board of Higher Education ended up getting involved, banning schools from signing on with the WRC.
The activist students graduated, and the movement lost momentum. Today, our apparel is still made in other countries–but companies like the one that prints our clothes are much more regulated.
A previous version of this article stated that the UOPD and the Eugene PD arrested the students. Not only did UOPD not exist in 2000, the Office of Public Safety that did exist didn’t have the authority to arrest students. The Eugene PD made the arrests.