Katsh said joining the WRC will offer the University better information about factory conditions and will help ensure workers’ fundamental rights.

“The most basic and most important thing that the University can get out of this is that there will be greater transparency about the conditions of the factories,” he said. “Harvard can now leverage its power and prestige in ensuring that any problems in the factories where the apparel is made are resolved.”

Mackinnon emphasized the significance of Harvard backing the WRC for workers’ rights more generally.

“It is really meaningful for the anti-sweatshop movement that Harvard’s willing to take a stand like this,” she said. “It also kind of suggests a new path for the WRC, and now maybe other schools that were holding out will join.”

HSAS’s campaign began five years ago as part of a national movement to ensure transparency among school apparel producers.

While Harvard adopted a “code of conduct” for labor standards when it joined the FLA as a founding member, HSAS pushed the University to adopt a more stringent code, which Mackinnon said former University President Neil L. Rudenstine indicated he was sympathetic to.

University membership in the WRC was initially included in the list of demands made by the Progressive Student Labor Movement during its 2001 sit-in of Massachusetts Hall, although it was later dropped.

Upon his arrival, Summers backed off of the proposed new code of conduct and seemed skeptical of the WRC proposal, according to Mackinnon.

But HSAS persisted, meeting extensively with the office of General Counsel Anne Taylor during Summers’ first year.

According to Mackinnon, Taylor told HSAS members that she coauthored a memo with Senior Director of Federal and State Relations Kevin Casey supporting WRC membership.

Taylor left Mass. Hall at the end of that year and has subsequently declined to comment on the matter.

After her departure, however, the negotiations began from scratch, as Mackinnon said Summers asked HSAS to resubmit the materials associated with its WRC proposal.

HSAS members met with Summers numerous times last year, culminating in an April meeting at which Summers committed to make a decision, according to Mackinnon.

A few weeks later, Summers said he would need more time, and this fall sent the matter to Iuliano for a recommendation.

Mackinnon said the Iuliano meeting seems to have been a turning point in the WRC battle.