Penn State decided Friday to end its contract with Russell Athletic, following eight other universities across the nation, university officials said.
Damon Sims, vice president for Student Affairs, wrote in an e-mail to members of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) Friday morning that the university will terminate its licensing contract with the apparel manufacturer on March 31.
Sims wrote that he met Friday with Penn State President Graham Spanier, Associate to the President for Administration Tom Poole and Penn State's Director for Trademark Licensing Maureen Riedel to discuss the fate of the contract.
"We met to discuss the Russell Athletic situation in light of the response the company recently provided to our earlier letter expressing concerns," Sims wrote.
Riedel alerted Russell Friday afternoon of Penn State's decision to cut its contract.
Penn State put Russell on probation earlier this month.
Russell, a supplier of licensed apparel to Penn State and other universities, has been embroiled in a workers' rights controversy after closing its Jerzees de Honduras plant earlier this year.
The university has been investigating the collegiate apparel manufacturer for quite some time, Spanier said.
"It's something we have had under review for several weeks," he said. "We have been concerned about it for a while."
Spanier added Penn State wanted to receive and review reports from both the Fair Labor Association and the Worker Rights Consortium before making its final decision.
"Just by looking at our overall relationship and Russell's policies, we decided not to renew with them at this time," he said.
Spanier said despite the efforts made recently by student groups to persuade the university to cut its contract, the administration made the decision based on what it felt was best for Penn State.
"We have had [Russell] under review ourselves. We don't typically make decisions based on who has the loudest voice," Spanier said. "While people might think that I just sit in Old Main and make decisions, that is not the case."
Although the decision made by the university is one USAS wanted, the group does not think it is quite enough.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction, but cutting the contract with Russell is only one step," USAS member Brian Flowers said. "We feel that Penn State needs to sign on to the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) to really solve the problem."
The DSP is a program that would help ensure universities their licensed apparel is not being produced in sweatshops.
Flowers (freshman-computer science) added USAS will continue to push for joining the DSP, though probably not as aggressively as it has in the past, as long as the university opens lines of communication with the group.
"It mostly depends on their attitude going into this," he said. "Even now they haven't had that much communication with us."
The university has several other licensees other than Russell, a number of which might also be terminated in the future, Spanier said.
"People don't realize that we have hundreds of licensees, and we review the licenses every year," he said. "We will probably, over time, trim down the number."
The eight other schools who have recently cut ties with Russell Athletic are Rutgers University, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, Georgetown University, the University of Miami, the University of Houston, Cornell University and Columbia University.
