Students question future of Nike, university partnerships

By Hanna LoPatin

Daily News Editor

Nike's decision not to renew its contract with the University of Michigan was based on bad business rather than the University's membership in the national anti-sweatshop group Workers' Rights Consortium, said Nike Labor Practices Manager Simon Pestridge.

But the end of the partnership between Nike and the University is the third incident of Nike CEO and Founder Phil Knight detaching his company from universities belonging to the WRC.

The nature of the announcement has left both anti-sweatshop activists and athletic administrators across the country wondering who is coming out on top - and what the future is for Nike and other WRC schools.

Knight first withdrew funds from Brown University's hockey team and then cancelled personal donations to the University of Oregon - his alma mater.

Dave Williford, Assistant Athletic Director for Media Services at the University of Oregon, said that the university's contract with Nike does not expire until 2003, but that Knight's decision will cost the university $30 million in academics and $20 million in athletics.

Williford blamed the matter - which could potentially halt the planned expansion of Oregon's football stadium - to a "failure to communicate to (Knight) our intentions."

The future of Oregon and Nike, Williford said, will depend on the development of the WRC by 2003.

"We're hoping in our case, more so from a personal relationship, that things come to be mended between the University of Oregon and Phil Knight before that date," he said.

Seth Quackenbush, an Oregon student and member of the Human Rights Alliance, said he thinks the recent events will force Nike to eventually adhere to WRC policies.

"Judging from reactions around campus, it seems Phil Knight is digging himself into a hole," he said.

As for the declaration of a winner, "It is workers' rights that are winning here," Quackenbush said. "Nike's going to have to change."

Similar feelings were expressed by Dennis Markatos, a member of Students for Economic Justice and student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Nike's most lucrative college.

"Hopefully the winners in this case will be the workers," Markatos said.

"Phil Knight is not a winner," he added. "Greed is running his life and that's no win for him."

With North Carolina moving into the top-selling spot at Nike, Markatos said he is worried about the future of the university and the WRC.

"It's a possibility that UNC would drop out (of the WRC) in the summer when students aren't around to do a sit-in," he said.

But, Markatos added, "I want to trust our current chancellor (Interim Chancellor William McCoy). He wouldn't betray us."

McCoy will be succeeded by recently-elected James Moeser in August.

For the remaining WRC universities under contract with Nike, Pestridge said Nike will "take every contract on a case-by-case basis."

Markatos speculated that Nike would lose revenue from the termination of its contract with the University, but Pestridge said "Our business is good at the end of the day."