“U smell like poo,” Student Labor Action Committee member Ashok Kumar wrote on Chancellor John D. Wiley’s Facebook profile in the early hours of November 14.
The profile, of course, is a hoax. SLAC has tapped the social network as a campaign against the chancellor and his stance on University of Wisconsin licensing practices. The organization perceives Mr. Wiley to be soft on the question of labor exploitation and, apparently, believes that telling students he smells “like poo” will be an effective way to get their worker-friendly message across.
It isn’t.
It is the final straw in a line backward, counterproductive, asinine moves that have totally incinerated SLAC’s already McReputation.
UW labor licensing is a serious question and is deserves a serious debate. What SLAC is orchestrating through its online campaign ripe with scatological satire and lowbrow humor amounts to little more than a complete suicide of ethos from an organization that once had a reasonable expectation of being taken seriously.
And the greatest tragedy of the whole situation is that this campus really might benefit from a serious student advocacy group tackling the question of labor rights. An organization that would do away with pathetic media stunts and juvenile pranks could raise relevant points about UW’s current policy. That the school works with a sweatshop monitoring association that replies only to complaints and that doesn’t employ random, unannounced or otherwise capricious factory check-ups is a shame. Progress can be made on this front, but it will take a serious and dedicated group — something UW currently lacks.
Moreover, that SLAC members sit on UW’s Labor Licensing Policy Committee only serves to hurt the credibility of that body as well. The chancellor has employed LLPC to address the many serious questions of sweatshop production — a genuine credit to Mr. Wiley and his administration. That SLAC members now constantly tarnish the image of LLPC is a pox on the university.
If SLAC’s leadership and active membership truly cares about workers’ rights in overseas factories, they will now resign their posts and allow serious people to do the good work this school so badly needs. Until this happens, Mr. Wiley’s 1,583 Facebook “friends” will have no reason to expect anything but more of the same from the university.
Correction: This editorial originally quoted a Facebook post from Gerri Witthuhn. The quote was removed after Witthuhn disputed she made the comment and a friend stated he was the actual poster.
