Even if we believe that for-profit consulting firms with long-term business relationships to garment corporations can deliver objective information, as the present FLA plan stands, each factory would be inspected once every ten years--ten lifetimes in today's economy. And, since inspections are pre-announced, factories owners will rest easy, knowing they can abuse women workers and bust unions for years and still enjoy valuable "sweat-free" certification from the U.S. government--and Harvard.

If Harvard does not envision a plan such as the WRC, what role would full disclosure play in its eventual policy? It would be odd for a policy to bring the public as far as the locked factory gates and no further. Anti-sweatshop advocates know how to get through factory gates, so full disclosure in itself does increase the information available to the public.

Yet does Harvard really want to further the climate of antagonism and distrust that rules contemporary sweatshop debates? This would be the result of a policy that reveals factories to independent organizations, yet bars them from the decision-making process. Harvard, as a rich, non-profit institution, can afford to take a chance on an idea that puts the lauded "openness" of our global economy to work for those who are still waiting to see its benefits.

Aron R. Fischer '99-'00 is a PSLM member who concentrates in social studies and is affiliated with Dudley House.