Last year, after protests by Solidarity over alleged violations of workers’ rights in Honduras, Georgetown joined several other universities in dropping its contract with sports gear manufacturer Russell Athletic.  It seems the collective boycott worked: Russell just announced that it will be reversing its questionable labor decisions, according to the Associated Press.

At the center of the protests was Russell’s decision to close the Jerzees de Honduras factory in Choloma, Honduras after workers there tried to unionize.  Russell insisted at the time that the closure was made for purely economic reasons, but many workers rights organizations attributed it to union busting.

Russell recently announced that it will reopen the factory and rehire 1,200 of the former workers. The company also says it will abide by collective bargaining agreements at all of its factories in Honduras.

Recent Georgetown alum and organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops Jack Mahoney (SFS ’08), told the AP, “This is huge. We’ve had a number of smaller victories, but this is the first time we know of that somebody has reversed a company’s decision.”

Georgetown students and administrators conducted a panel in the ICC Auditorium about Georgetown’s response to hate crimes last Thursday.

Several administrators attended the panel, included Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson and Vice President for University Safety Rocco DelMonaco. While there was little information about the crimes, the forum was full of information about safety at Georgetown.

DEFINING HATE CRIMES: The moderator pressed Olson to explain why Public Safety Alerts typically say “bias-related incident” instead of “hate crime.” Olson said Georgetown uses a legalistic definition of hate crime that only certain crimes qualify under.

When GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) asked Olson about the GUSA Senate’s bill to change the way hate crimes are treated under the Student Code of Conduct, Olson said the Office of Student Conduct would consider the legislation, but declined to say whether it would be adopted.

STUDENT PATROLS: In meetings after the hate crimes, GU Pride and other students have talked about organizing a group of students patrol campus at night, presumably to prevent hate crimes. DelMonaco pointed students towards other student-run safety groups like the Students Safety Advisory Board and APO’s shuttle service; Olson seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea.

“We need to make sure that if we’re putting students out in a patrol function, that those students are going to be safe,” Olson said.

More about security cameras on campus, arming DPS and Solidarity’s spat with Rocco after the jump!

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The Georgetown Solidarity Committee just released an open letter to University President John DeGioia demanding better treatment of and higher salaries for Department of Public Safety officers.

The letter says that the recent hate crimes have revealed “a pervasive, historically rooted, and dangerous climate on campus” which is due in large part to “neglecting the well-being” of DPS officers.

The letter says that the DPS officers are paid roughly three dollars less than other campus security officers at other D.C. schools and the department is consequently habitually understaffed.  Solidarity is insisting on a four dollar raise over the next three years for current officers and “a fair staffing policy.”

According to the letter:

DPS Officers are the lowest-paid police in Washington, D.C. … SafeRides, escort services, and other safety systems are frequently understaffed and unable to provide sufficient services. These issues hinder the retention of employees and undervalue long-term officers with the experiential knowledge of Georgetown, which is essential to the trust needed between DPS and the community. This “revolving door” leaves the Georgetown community vulnerable to future incident …

Even in hard economic times, we must not compromise the respect, security and well-being of those charged with keeping us safe.

If last night proved anything, it’s that nothing gets a Georgetown classroom packed like one of the most liberal members of Congress discussing what he considers “the next civil rights movement”—healthcare.

During his speech, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D—Ohio) focused primarily on the importance of passing the bill he co-authored, HR 676, or, “Medicare for All.”  The bill would take the existing Medicare system and expand it cover everyone.

Of course, the big question is how such an expansion would be paid for.  Kucinich’s comeback to that concern was that “We’re already paying for a universal standard of care we’re not getting.”

“2.4 trillion dollars a year we spend on healthcare in America,” he explained in his speech. “One out of every 3 dollars, or $800 million a year goes for corporate profit, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, and the cost of paperwork. So the for-profit healthcare system has a lot at stake here.”

Kucinich also mused on the current healthcare bill’s prospects in Congress, saying he predicts the House will have a public option in its version, but the Senate won’t.

“The public option is not likely to survive a conference committee,” he said.

During the question and answer portion of the talk, he also expressed disagreement with the idea that passing Senate Finance Chairman Max Bachus’s (D—Mont.) healthcare bill would be “better than nothing” and criticized the power that has been given to insurance companies.

Photography by Jackson Perry.