American Association of University Professors Attacks Nike Conflicts of Interest at UWashington

Recently, the University of Washington American Association of University Professors (AAUP) passed a resolution condemning a school provost's appointment to Nike's Corporate Board of Directors. There has been a lot of controversy over Nike at the UW recently, as USAS activists have been trying to get their school to force Nike to fork over roughly $2 million in unpaid severance to Honduran workers. Although the students have successfully lobbied a university committee to recommend putting Nike on notice of violating Washington's lucrative clothing contract, so far UW President Mark Emmert has not listened to his own joint-governance committee. Instead, he sent the company a weakly worded letter which you can view here.

Most of Emmert's letter is fairly weak, asking for the company's "perspective" on the Honduran situation and "information on the remediation" due to workers. But, Emmert doesn't exercise the only leverage he has short of cutting Washington's contract with Nike, which is officially putting the company on "notice" for labor violations. Given this lack of action by the school's president and the provost's newly minted association with the company, concerned faculty seem to have a lot of ground in questioning the integrity of the university's leadership. For more information check out Seattle Weekly and Crosscut coverage of these issues.