At the Coop, the hat reached the consumer at a price of $18.98.

The Sweat Ahead

University attorney Allan A. Ryan, Jr. says finding where particular goods are manufactured without help from companies is no easy task.

"If [the manufacturers] are not going to tell you I don't know of any other way that you could find out," he says.

But as Harvard waits for its apparel manufacturers to spill their beans, it is already preparing for the next step--monitoring. At issue is how to effectively keep tabs on conditions, while still giving companies their privacy.

In March, Harvard announced that it was joining the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a government-initiated partnership of businesses and other concerned parties that will start monitoring next year.

And amid concerns that the FLA is too soft on industry, Harvard has also made a one-year deal with four other universities to coordinate sweatshop policies and monitoring systems. It has also hired an accounting and consulting firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, to conduct the oversight.

Academic initiatives have also been spearheaded. Starting tomorrow, the Harvard Trade Union Program will host a two-day conference with leaders from business, academia, non-governmental organizations and the student movement against sweatshops. The conference will examine ways of working together on the sweatshop dilemma.