Retired professor Arthur Goldschmidt told a crowd on the Old Main steps yesterday that he clashed with administrators 40 years ago when he tried to move the American flag to half mast.
Goldschmidt, a former history professor, said that story is an example of the importance of standing up to the university about important issues, such as signing onto the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP), which monitors factories that make collegiate apparel to ensure clothing is not made in sweatshops.
Goldschmidt told the crowd of about 100 students and community members who gathered in support of the DSP at a noon rally yesterday that his conflict with the university in 1968 began because he wanted to commemorate the previous day's assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Though administrators said they needed orders from Harrisburg to change the flag, they eventually lowered it, Goldschmidt said, adding a challenge to the student groups to continue their campaign to overcome an administration he said is built on fear.
United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) sponsored the event to pressure Penn State President Graham Spanier to pledge the university as a member of the DSP.
A petition was circulated for supporters to sign. Following the rally, attendees climbed the stairs to Spanier's Old Main office to deliver the four-page letter, which set a weeklong deadline for Spanier to join the program.
Carolyn Dolbin, Spanier's administrative assistant, said Spanier was out of town.
Event emcee and USAS member Aaron Troisi (graduate-crime, law and justice) said the student groups plan to reconvene at 4 p.m. next Tuesday to hold Spanier to the deadline.
He said free T-shirts made by the Family Clothesline, 352 E. College Ave., were available for the rally's attendees. Troisi said he considers the T-shirts the closest thing to a Penn State product in State College that can be called sweatshop-free.
A manager of the Family Clothesline said the family business has its own local factory that makes its T-shirts.
The rally included speeches by numerous community members and student group leaders. Some groups represented include Eco-Action, the Political Science Association, Latino/a Studies Initiative, the University Park Undergraduate Association and SpeakOut.
Local politicians Peter Morris, a State College Borough Council member, and Joanne Tosti-Vasey, who is running for a seat in the state House of Representatives, also addressed the crowd.
Former Black Caucus President Darryl Watson (senior-sociology) led the crowd in a chant that called for unity and justice. The group held hands in a circle and yelled loudly as passersby stopped to watch.
Anthropology professor Paul Durrenberger said Penn State is supposed to be a place that promotes human rights and dignity, but the university's lack of support for the DSP degrades those ideals.
"That which you permit, you promote," he said.
Paul Clark, a professor of labor studies and employment relations, said Penn State is telling the world that it is a leader in sweatshop activism, but "it's simply not true."
USAS member Doug Baldwin said Spanier has said he cannot sign the DSP because he does not want the university to show support for monopolies.
Baldwin held a Coca-Cola bottle above his head as the crowd laughed to illustrate, he said, that Penn State is a supporter of monopolies, as the campus is under a contract to only carry Pepsi products.
