Marquette administrators should be proud students are so concerned with upholding the motto of cura personalis for anyone affiliated with the university. That's why it seems unlikely that the decision-makers would be unwilling to take the necessary steps toward ending an injustice tied to Marquette.
Like at many universities, Nike sponsors Marquette's apparel. And like other major athletic brands such as adidas and New Balance, Nike uses sweatshop labor through its contracts with factories.
Thankfully, members of the student group Ubuntu hope to right this wrong and wisely petitioned to Toby Peters, associate vice president in the Office of Administration, on Wednesday to have Marquette join the Designated Suppliers Program.
DSP looks to create and regulate factories that would provide workers with living wages, better working conditions and opportunities to form unions, according to College of Arts & Sciences senior Marc Dettmann, who founded Ubuntu in conjunction with the national group United Students Against Sweatshops. DSP already counts 30 universities among its affiliates, including Georgetown, Fordham and Boston College.
Naturally, Peters said no one in the university disagrees with the ethics of this movement but cited past attempts of the university to organize groups to combat this issue. Therefore, he claimed that monitoring the effectiveness of a group like DSP would likely be just as difficult.
Peters suggested forming another group on campus to discuss possible strategies for supervising Marquette-affiliated factory operations, but one university fighting alone will not have nearly as great an impact as a team of more than 30 schools, some of which Peters admitted carried enough leverage to effect change.
Marquette needs to jump on the opportunity to join this team against worker injustice. If other Jesuit universities are willing to clearly demonstrate their concern for the care of people everywhere, then Marquette should be on board. As a Jesuit institution, we need to stop ignoring the pleas from both students and universities for this change and prove that we really do care for the whole person.