Students for an Ethical and Participatory Education (SEPE) is a group of Eastern Michigan University students dedicated to raising awareness of issues relating to social justice, student democracy and human rights.
But the group isn’t satisfied with merely shouting from the sidelines. Instead, their mission is to spearhead actual change on campus.
SEPE was formed around the idea of launching campaigns to raise awareness of certain issues and encourage the university community to take action. They realized that in order to reach a broader audience they would have to organize and take full advantage of the benefits the university offers to student organizations.
“We wanted to work on different campaigns that would necessitate us to have an official student organization, in order to get rooms and organize events,” said Lisa Lubold, a junior philosophy major and one of the group’s organizers.
SEPE’s first campaign is to get the university to do its part in ending sweatshop labor by dropping its current merchandise licensing agreement and joining the Worker’s Rights Consortium (WRC).
“The WRC is an organization that pools resources to minimize the cost to each university to investigate factories where licensed apparel comes from,” said Phil Patterson, another organizer for SEPE.
“The Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) is a relatively newer program that is through the WRC that has approved suppliers that have agreed to open transparency and to follow international law regarding human rights and workers rights,” he added.
In an open letter to the EMU community published in The Eastern Echo on Dec. 7, members of SEPE urged the university to join the DSP, arguing that it would “ensure EMU is exemplifying its cardinal principles in all of its actions by establishing a manufacturers’ code of conduct for official school suppliers.”
Six schools in Michigan have already signed on to the program, including the University of Michigan, Michigan State, Grand Valley, Western Michigan, Wayne State and Aquinas College.
For SEPE this is proof that a university the size of EMU could easily transition into the program.
Under the new plan, the university would gradually phase the new merchandise in over a three year period, eventually resulting in at least 75 percent of merchandise coming from the WRC certified factory.
“There’s no way of really knowing that the university clothing is sweat-shop free,” Patterson explained. “And in fact, we’re pretty sure that a majority of it is produced through companies that have been known to employ sweat shop tactics.”
But getting the university to switch suppliers won’t be an easy battle, and it will take the combined efforts of the campus community to show the administration this is an issue that requires action.
The group is reaching out to fellow student organizations for endorsements, and so far has gotten support from the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Students interested in endorsing the campaign can e-mail the group at sepe.emu@gmail.com.
For more information on the group, students are encouraged to join SEPE’s Facebook group or attend one of their meetings, which take place every Friday at noon across from the University Book Store in the Student Center. Starting next semester the group plans to hold bi-weekly teach-ins, where they will show documentaries to raise awareness on workers’ rights issues.
