Response was too much

Re “USC defends tough protest stance,” April 12

As a USC alumna, I was heartened when I first heard of student action on campus -- signs of life that we haven’t seen for a long time. Students are acting along with many others who support United Students Against Sweatshops, a national movement on college campuses to ensure that university apparel is not made in sweatshops by adopting the Designated Suppliers Program. To respond to students with a threat of punitive measures strikes me as overkill.

True, the administration has the right to make the rules and mete out penalties. But what do students learn when their demands are met with force that threatens their academic status? Surely there is a better way to resolve conflict.

It would seem that the lesson learned is that those who have the power will dominate and win. A sad lesson to learn in this time of globalization, militarization and war.

LENORE NAVARRO DOWLING

Los Angeles

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Just what right does the administration at USC have to telephone parents about students’ participation in a protest? The excuse that the parents are “financing the education” doesn’t hold water either. Did the powers that be check into that before calling? I doubt it. The law is very clear. Once a person turns 18, he or she is independent of parents’ control on such issues.

JACK ROSENBERG

Redondo Beach

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Re “At sit-in, students urge USC to ensure apparel is not sweatshop-produced,” April 11

In this article regarding student anti-sweatshop protests, a USC administrator mischaracterizes the Worker Rights Consortium as a “radical” organization. In fact, WRC is a professional labor rights monitoring organization, widely respected for its work of documenting and correcting worker rights violations in garment factories around the world. We count among our affiliates 168 universities, including the entire University of California system, numerous other major state universities and private institutions such as Harvard University, Georgetown and Duke.

Neither the WRC nor its affiliate universities are engaged in a radical enterprise but rather in the serious work of making sure that factories producing university logo apparel respect international labor standards.

SCOTT NOVA

Washington

The writer is executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium.