No Logo

More than 40 people, including students, faculty and even one administrator, Joe Ebaugh, met today to watch and discuss Naomi Klein's film No Logo. Community Roots and Feminism Without Borders sponsored the event.

Klein explains in the film the role branding plays in our lives. She argues that we aren't presented the choice to not consume. Rather, corporations, and, as an extension, the government present us with different things to consume.

Following the film there was a discussion about corporate influence in the University. Joe Ebaugh, the director of licensing at the University of Maryland, was challenged by FWB members Mary Yanik and Daniela Vann. The companies which T-shirts, sweatshirts, travel mugs, and other assorted garbage wearing the UMd. insignia (often alongside their own, corporate logo) pay the University for the right to use its name. These companies often manufacture their items in factories with inhumane working conditions. FWB is asking Joe Ebaugh and President Mote to sign the Designated Suppliers Program to condition use of the UMd. logo on companies abiding by fair labor standards and monitoring.

Ebaugh brushed off the concern, saying that he understands the problem and ought to take an "evolutionary" approach to the problem. FWB sees his solutions, using current measures, as a band-aid and a failure to address the structural problems with the apparel industry.

My concern, and I talked about it during the discussion, was the Universities growing role as a research farm. So much of what is being done on the northeast side of campus is wholly owned by transnational defense contractors. The technology being developed is . . . profit corporate elite. What's worse is that a great deal of the research is weapons or military technology research. We should be so proud that our university is so deeply connected with the military-industrial complex.

These connections are deep and longstanding and have serious, pressing consequences. Glenn Martin, for whom the Martin Institute of Technology here on campus and the Martin Aerospace Company (now Lockheed Martin) are named. The corporate sponsors of engineering school have hands covered in blood. The weapons they develop and sell to the military kill people. The wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan can only occur because of the availability of this technology. Future wars in different parts of the world (or the same, the U.S. has attacked Iraq three times) are dependent on deadly new weapons that provide no benefit to humanity.

As students of this University, we are responsible for what it does. This research is happening under our watch and in our name. What does it say about our priorities or our values?

More than just the research that is sponsored by the University, the way it invests its money shows how deep its corporate ties go. The University System of Maryland Foundation, Inc. is the not-for-profit company that is in charge of the combined endowments for all of the institutions in the system. In total, USMF directs about $1 billion. We don't know where it goes. USMF claims that it has established certain confidentiality agreements with fund managers which it cannot break.

So for now we can only imagine: not only does our University do research for war profiteers, but it funds them!