Last Friday, Penn State President Graham Spanier struck a blow for worker's rights with his decision to cut Penn State's contract with Russell Athletic.

The company, a supplier of licensed apparel to Penn State and other universities, has been embroiled in a workers' rights controversy after closing its 1,800-worker Jerzees de Honduras plant earlier this year.

Conflicting reports show disparity in the reasons for the plant's closure: A Fair Labor Association (FLA) report concluded the closure was primarily because of economic factors, while a report from the Worker's Rights Consortium found that the plant closure was in response to workers' attempts to unionize.

Still, the mere hint of workers' rights abuse was enough for several other major universities to cut their ties with Russell, including the University of Wisconsin, Rutgers University and Georgetown University.

Penn State correctly took a measured response to the allegations of worker's rights abuse. Spanier placed Russell on probation earlier this year, telling the company that it was in danger of losing the university's business. In a letter dated Feb. 2, Penn State requested that Russell comply with 10 remedial steps in the FLA report. Those steps include assisting workers in finding employment in the area and encouraging other plant managers to hire workers from Jerzees de Honduras.

But despite the university's warnings, Russell did not respond in an appropriate manner. According to other universities, the company has been very uncooperative and exhibited a pattern of unresponsiveness. While we don't know that this is the case with Penn State, the decision to cut the contract with Russell came "by looking at our overall relationship and Russell's policies," said Spanier.

It appears that the contract severance wasn't a rash decision, but a well thought out and sensible one. Spanier did not give a specific reason for the decision, but alluded to the company's recent workers' rights problems in his comments.

Cutting ties with Russell is a move, albeit an incremental one, in the right direction.

In addition to its possible infractions, Russell has thus far displayed a refusal to engage in dialogue -- with universities and with The Daily Collegian -- a pattern on non-responsiveness and a lack of corporate transparency. Those are not qualities desirable in a company producing T-shirts bearing our school's logo.

Because of this, we might not know exactly why the university chose to dump Russell, or why it put the company on probation in the first place, but it certainly seems that the university is beginning to take seriously the issue of workers' rights.

Penn State is to be applauded for its measured, rational response to a very serious problem.