In one quick session during its Feb. 16 meeting, the State Board of Higher Education essentially ended the dispute over the Worker Rights Consortium, one of the most contentious and politically divisive issues on campus.
The board adopted a policy that would require all schools in the Oregon University System to conduct business in “a straightforward and politically impartial manner.” This nullifies the University’s involvement in labor monitoring groups such as the WRC and Fair Labor Association, and negates its own code of conduct for businesses that are licensed to use the University’s logo on merchandise.
Listed simply as “proposed board policy on business practices” on the agenda for the board’s meeting, the action received little attention until its ramifications became clear.
The policy states that the seven OUS institutions can only do business with companies that can prove they can do the job and aren’t doing anything illegal. All other factors that could include the condition of the company’s factories can no longer be a factor for a university to chose a business partner.
The University is the only institution in the OUS that is a member of the WRC.
University General Counsel Melinda Grier said she has been reviewing the policy since the middle of last week, and while she said she will not totally understand its impact until the end of the week, she did confirm it essentially means the University can not be a member of the WRC.
“I don’t see how we can join [the WRC] and comply with the board’s policy,” she said.
She added the University’s code of conduct may also be in conflict with the new guidelines.
Despite the policy’s dramatic effect on the labor issue, Grier said she has heard the decision was not prompted by the WRC dispute. She said the policy is the board’s attempt to keep state schools from using their political weight as leverage in business deals, which she said is in conflict with the public nature of universities.
“As public entities, [universities] should be impartial,” she said.
OUS board member and University student Tim Young said he was the lone dissenting vote on the policy, and expressed his frustration at the way the board handled the issue.
“It was such a broad issue, the way that it was treated … it was a little misleading,” he said.
Young said the board should have offered more opportunities for students and other university members to join in on the debate over the policy, rather than simply making the decision at the meeting.
OUS Chancellor Joe Cox could not be reached for comment on the policy.
Young said the decision was in direct response to the WRC issue and is a means for the OUS to avoid having to make a decision on the labor issue.
“It’s a way for the OUS to not answer the question,” he said.
Young said he was also against the policy because it denies universities the chance to use their influence in political causes. He said issues will continually arise where universities can provide a strong voice, and now that voice has been muzzled.
“It’s unfortunate that we can’t be in that capacity,” he said.
The University has been involved with the WRC since last April when student protests helped prompt the University to join the group. The University joined the FLA at the beginning of this academic year.
While the University is a member of both groups, a faculty committee has been studying the issues associated with labor monitoring, which has remained a key campus issue even though some of the activist fervor of last year has abated.
Part of the reason why the University’s involvement in the WRC has been so controversial is because one of the University’s largest donors, Nike co-founder Phil Knight, severed all his ties with the University because it joined the WRC.
That action left many supporters convinced that the University would never make it through the first year of its membership in the WRC.
Associate professor and director of the Honors College David Frank has been leading the committee studying the issues surrounding labor monitoring and said he is not sure what the committee will do in light of the board’s new policy.
“I am still thinking about what the committee ought to do,” he said. “The next question should be, what should the University do?”
He said the response to the policy has been mixed among faculty members, some were pleased by the decision and others frustrated. Some faculty members were “quite concerned” about what the policy may mean for the University’s code of conduct, he said.
Even though the decision has ended the labor debate, Frank said he was not discouraged by the policy. He said the decision changed the issue from simply involving the University and the WRC to something all the state’s universities could have a voice in.
“I think it moves it to a different plane, the state board plane,” he said.