The new OUS policy forbidding discrimination in contracting, which is likely to force the University to drop out of the Worker Rights Consortium, has been harshly criticized. But there is good reason to favor a ban on politically motivated discrimination by government agencies. Government discrimination nearly always targets weak and/or despised groups, those who have little political power. There are very few examples in which official discrimination did not benefit the powerful.
While the goal of the WRC is to protect the weak against the powerful, it takes a great, and historically unwarranted, faith in government to believe that a regular practice of official discrimination will, in the long run, work in favor of the weak. It is far better, therefore, to restrict all official discrimination than to promote it and hope it is always used wisely.
A non-discriminatory standard will not diminish the ability to encourage social change. Those who believe it will are only announcing their lack of imagination. Instinctively turning to government to promote one’s goals is not a very creative approach to solving problems. Nor does it recognize where the real power for social change lies — with people who are willing to accept the costs of creating it.
One of the ironies of the coercive approach favored by the WRC is that it suggests an unwillingness to share in the costs of positive social change. WRC supporters want to punish businesses for alleged wrongdoing, but do not want to bear the costs of social change by rewarding them for “rightdoing.”
The solution is simple, and is probably within acceptable bounds of the OUS policy: The University should reward its suppliers for improving pay and working conditions. Contractual incentives and bonuses for producing University apparel in shops with favorable working conditions would entice suppliers to enhance conditions because they would be rewarded for doing so. This cost increase would be passed on to consumers of the apparel — that is, to you and me. Then we could support social change by putting our money where our mouths are.
This plan would also decrease the conflict that has created little but anger and mistrust on both sides. Phil Knight, who has given far more money for academics than for sports, would not have withdrawn his support if this simple policy had been followed. Students would not have had to camp out at Johnson Hall for a week. Advocates of social change would not have had to rely on the doubtful authority of a “democratic” vote on WRC membership in an election in which only 10 percent of the electorate cast votes.
Most important, positive change in the working conditions of apparel laborers would be happening right now, rather than waiting for the outcome of further political and legal wrangling. Only a taste for conflict would stand in the way of this simple solution. Only a dislike for corporations that is stronger than a concern for social justice would reject this approach. There are cynics who suspect that the WRC supporters’ anti-corporate vendetta is more important than actually achieving social gains. Here is a chance to prove them wrong.
Demand that the University offer contract incentives for improved working conditions, and then rush to the bookstore to buy the new, more socially acceptable, merchandise.