Approximately 250 students crammed into the EMU Fir Room Monday night to attend an open forum with University President Dave Frohnmayer and nine student leaders who have participated in an ongoing protest demanding that Frohnmayer sign on with the Worker Rights Consortium and increase shared governance for students.
Students have protested outside Johnson Hall since Tuesday, and 14 have been arrested on trespassing charges for refusing to leave the administration building upon closing time. Throughout the past week, many students have camped in tents outside Johnson Hall.
Frohnmayer, who did not respond to the protest throughout the past week, agreed to meet with student protesters after he returned from Washington, D.C., Saturday to set up Monday’s meeting.
Students are demanding that Frohnmayer sign a statement promising not to join the Fair Labor Association or any other monitoring body students consider insufficient in enforcing fair labor practices. Frohnmayer said joining the FLA has not been up for debate and is thus currently not an option being discussed.
He committed to not joining the FLA as long as there was no desire by any University constituency to do so but did not sign any statement.
“I’d be happy to speak to the issue, but I’m not going to sign anything tonight,” he said.
Students also asked Frohnmayer to sign on with the WRC, a monitoring body which would enforce fair labor conditions in factories producing University-licensed apparel, for a five-year term.
While the President said he would sign on with the WRC by the end of this week, provided the University Senate approves such action in its upcoming Wednesday meeting, he also said he is considering a one-year membership at this point. Frohnmayer said given that the WRC was just recently established, he thinks a one-year membership will give the University a chance to see whether the WRC will be efficient.
So far, all universities who have signed on with the monitoring system to this point have agreed to one-year terms.
However, some students, such as Human Rights Alliance member Sarah Jacobson, said a one-year term will not allow for enough time to build the relationships required to make the WRC work at its full potential.
“Perhaps it’s the place of the University of Oregon to be the ground breaker in this instance,” Jacobson said.
Students also asked Frohnmayer to send a letter to University Assembly members, asking them to vote to change the composition of the University Senate and include more seats for classified staff and students.
Frohnmayer declined to agree, saying he would never sign a letter that he was not involved in composing and that he did not believe in. He also said the University’s charter might not allow him to influence the University Assembly in such a way.
The forum further examined protesters’ demand that Frohnmayer grant decision-making control to all committees accountable to him in addition to including more students on those committees. Frohnmayer urged students to rethink and reword this demand because it allowed for conflicting final decisions by different committees.
“I think that the demand … is incredibly flawed,” Frohnmayer said. “It is a formula for anarchy.”
Throughout the forum, students expressed concern about feeling excluded from decision-making on campus.
“It is not with pleasure that we come here with demands, President Frohnmayer,” ASUO Vice President Mitra Anoushiravani said. “I am very concerned with the way you have marginalized student investment.”
Frohnmayer said students’ voices are heard on campus, and in the case of the WRC issue, their demands came at a time where action was already being taken.
“I would take gentle issue with those of you who said a sit-in was necessary … because the process was well under way,” he said.
While students were excited to have met with the president to discuss their demands, some left the meeting feeling a lack of accomplishment.
“We didn’t get as many concrete decisions as we would have liked,” protester Agatha Schmaedick, said.
Students will meet with Frohnmayer again as early as Wednesday, but definitely by the end of the week.