But the other reason Duke cited was that it was simply the right thing to do. Morally, Duke officials said, the school abhors abusive and oppressive labor practices. I encourage all colleges and universities to work to adopt codes of conduct that are as strong as that adopted by Duke University and Brown University, and seek to do everything in their power to make sure that schools of higher learning do not participate in the lowest forms of exploitation. And eventually it succeeded. I believe it will be harder to wipe out labor exploitation than it was to abolish apartheid.
Companies can pack up and move without notice.
The international field is huge and hard to police. And production patterns are so scattered that it is often hard to trace a product from start to finish. That is one reason why I support including in the code independent monitoring and the requirement to list the specific address of the plant where the university product is manufactured. Our challenge today, even if harder, is no less important. We must not tolerate products made with exploited labor.