Many students might think that sweatshops, child labor and other industrial worker rights play no role in their daily lives here at Penn State.

But do you know where, and under what conditions, that Penn State hoodie you're wearing was made?

Chances are you do not, but the fact of the matter is that there is a possibility that workers employed under poor working conditions played a part in the production of various pieces of Penn State apparel.

In light of this problem, United Students Against Sweatshops and some other university officials encouraged Penn State to find a way to enforce more stringent values.

In January, the university announced its new affiliation with Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an organization that monitors the collegiate apparel industry.

Unions and other agencies that specifically focus on apparel workers' rights are the active components in WRC.

Despite this new connection, Penn State will keep using Fair Labor Association (FLA)'s ethical standards, which are far less restrictive than those of the WRC.

It's 2006, and Penn State has just decided to affiliate with WRC? It is the last Big Ten university to join, and one of the biggest buyers of university apparel. What took so long?

Shouldn't students know about or be privy to information regarding the possibility that children or other mistreated workers make Penn State apparel?

To think that a university, which over 80,000 students attend, can just ignore the blatant human rights issues surrounding factory workers in foreign countries is inconceivable.

By associating with the consortium, Penn State is making an effort to change the standards of apparel production, but unless it adopts the higher ethical standards the new affiliation is moot. Penn State should take a stance and demonstrate to its students as well as the rest of the collegiate community that it sincerely cares about foreign workers' rights and human rights issues.

Until recently, Penn State was only affiliated with FLA, a profit-focused monitoring group, for all its university apparel production standards. The FLA code does not specific working conditions of factory employees, referred to as ethical standards.

The link with WRC will allow Penn State administrators to access information about university apparel factories' locations and the employees' working conditions.

However, unless the university makes the decision to adopt the WRC's code of conduct, which enforces stricter worker condition standards and ethical regulations than the FLA code, the decision to join WRC was nothing more than a stereotypical public relations move.