Organizing Against Russell Athletic Still Going Strong

It’s been almost two weeks since the University of North Carolina became the twenty-first campus this year to break with Russell Athletic over labor violations. No other schools have dumped Russell since then, but the campaign against the apparel manufacturer is still going strong. 

A few highlights of the last two weeks’ organizing:

• Activists at the University of Minnesota are building on their victory there — now that UM has axed Russell, they’re pressing for the university to join the Worker Rights Consortium’s Designated Suppliers Program.

• Villanova University’s athletics program has announced a temporary freeze in purchasing from Russell while they investigate the situation, and the campus newspaper published an editorial last Thursday calling on the university to break with Russell permanently.

• A member of Kansas University Students Against Sweatshops wrote an op-ed for the Daily Kansan urging KU to cut its Russell ties.

• The Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation held a Russell Athletics teach-in at the University of Southern California.

• Campus activists attended last Friday’s Associated Students UCLA meeting to press the case for dumping Russell. 

Meanwhile, Russell Athletic is inviting the presidents of the colleges and universities that have cut their ties with the company to visit Honduras on an RA-hosted “fact-finding trip.”

March 20 Update: USAS is tweeting that the Montana State University Bozeman has become the 22nd campus to drop Russell in 2009. Also, there’s a major story on the campaign going out over the AP wire. Also, USAS reports that MSU-Bozeman and Santa Clara University have both dumped Russell. That makes 23 campuses.

May 1 Update: Boston College and the University of California make FIFTY-SEVEN campuses. Wow.