University President Dave Frohnmayer has announced that he will follow the opinion of General Counsel Melinda Grier, effectively keeping the University from becoming a full member of either the Worker Rights Consortium or the Fair Labor Association.
Frohnmayer said he will wait to make his final decision until after a University Senate ad hoc committee working on the labor-monitoring issue delivers its report. But Frohnmayer said it is doubtful that the report will affect his decision.
The decision ends a nearly two-year-long debate over labor monitoring and licensing issues that spawned one of the largest student protests in recent memory and resulted in the loss of one of the University’s largest donors.
There has been little collective action as relations between the University and the WRC have progressively cooled. It has been almost a year since students camped on the lawn of Johnson Hall to convince Frohnmayer to join the WRC.
University Senate President and English Professor James Earl was disheartened by the news of Frohnmayer’s decision.
“The committee and myself don’t believe there’s any way around the roadblock in this issue,” he said.
Earl said he couldn’t see any reason for the current change in policy, aside from simply ending the labor-monitoring issue.
“I can’t fathom any other purpose except to kill student protest,” he said.
Earl said he was especially frustrated over how the issue ended, and he said the effort that had been spent on the issue effectively was lost.
“It’s very disappointing all the work that has been done for naught,” he said.
Professor David Frank, who is heading the ad hoc committee, said he was not that discouraged, because he expected Frohnmayer to side with his legal counsel.
“I knew it was coming,” he said.
Frank said there is little the University Senate could do to “force or compel the University to join a monitoring group” because of the legal situation.
Instead, he said, professors will have to continue to offer their research and opinions to keep the University well informed of all the issues surrounding labor monitoring.
“It’s going to remain a critical issue,” he said.