The University has come under fire for refusing to divulge how ‘University of Oxford’ branded clothing is made, leading to concerns about the ethical credentials of souvenir tourist clothes and stash.
OUSU’s Environment and Ethics Committee are campaigning to get Oxford Limited, a business subsidiary of the University responsible for the global licensing of the Oxford brand, to be open about the manufacture of University of Oxford clothing. The University claims that they are unable to publicise the manufacturing arrangements of their suppliers, as it is “commercially sensitive information”.

Sean Robinson, co-ordinator of the E&E Anti-Sweatshop Campaign, said, “We should not put the Oxford University brand to a product which may have been made in appalling conditions for those workers involved.

“The brand should stand for more than making money whilst ignoring ethical obligations. We want to ensure that no one who wears the Oxford Crest on their breast need also bear the weight of exploitation on their mind.”

A similar campaign five years ago by the Ethics Committee resulted in Oxford Ltd introducing a Code of Labour Practice which specifies that licensees must ensure acceptable working conditions in their factories. However, without an independent body to check that this code is being implemented, ethics campaigners fear that it will have no effect.

Robinson said that the code “only has meaning if there is incentive on the part of either Oxford Ltd or the licensees to see it enforced.
“Consumers concerned over labour conditions voice their concerns with their wallets. If Oxford Ltd contractually obliged its licensees to ensure open, independent, verification of the working conditions in their factories and warehouses, then ethically minded consumers could rest assured that they would not be buying clothes stained with the blood, sweat and tears of exploited workers.”

Oxford Ltd is said to have responded favourably to the campaign’s pressure for the inclusion of disclosure clauses in the contracts the company signs with its licensees, which would enable information about manufacturing arrangements to be released and accredited by an independent third party.

A spokesperson for the University said, “Oxford Limited continually checks and is reassured by all of its licensees and suppliers that [ethical] policy is adhered to.

“At a recent meeting with OUSU, Oxford Limited was happy to accept a suggestion that OUSU propose a revised form of wording for future agreements.”

Campaigners also want Oxford to affiliate itself with the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent U.S. organisation which monitors companies in order to protect the rights of workers involved in garment production. Membership costs £12,000, which would constitute 1 per cent of its gross licensing revenues.

Criticising Oxford’s non-membership of the Consortium, Robinson said, “If Oxford Ltd want, as they claim, to ensure good conditions for their workers, why are they keeping those conditions secret? Harvard have done it, Princeton have done it: 188 colleges and universities have signed up to the Workers Rights Consortium: why won’t Oxford?”
OUSU’s campaign is focusing primarily on the Oxfordbranded clothing popular with tourists, but E&E reps are also concerned about how sports teams’ and college stash is made.

Currently, the permission for use of branding on sportswear and college merchandise is given by the University proctors for official teams and clubs, or individual colleges in the case of college logos. With this permission, teams or colleges can go to any supplier, meaning there is no standard across the board for ethical production.

Tom Meacher, captain of Oxford Polo Blues, told Cherwell he thought it was important that any company manufacturing university branded clothes should be as transparent as possible. “It’s not ethical to be selling clothing made in places like sweatshops and just not fair on the students who are buying this stash unknowingly.”

The results of the OUSU elections were announced last night, heralding victory for ‘Martha4OUSU’, the slate led by current St. John’s College third year Martha Mackenzie.

Mackenzie, who is studying History and Politics, will take up the position of OUSU President next year.

She received 1483 votes, while her opponent Tom Scott, a third year PPE student from New College, received 1246.

Hannah Cusworth and Seb Baird, the other two students running for sabbatical positions on the ‘Martha4OUSU’ slate, were also both elected.

Cusworth will be Vice President for Access and Academic Affairs in the academic year 2011-2012, and Baird wll be Vice President for Welfare and Equal Opportunities.

The two other sabbatical positions were won by Yuan Yang, who will be the Vice President for Women, and Daniel Stone, who will be the Vice President for Charities and Community.

Total turnout for the elections was 14 per cent of the student population of Oxford. This is two per cent less than last year.
The ‘Martha4OUSU’ campaign slogan was “Listening, Leading, Delivering.” Among their proposed policies are to establish official minimum standards of academic provision accross colleges, and to set up a career development fund.

The OUSU presidential and vice-presidential jobs are full-time , paid positions. This year the salary for all five is estimated at £19,946 including National Insurance contributions, or £17,519 without.
Reactions to the results were mixed last night. Kat Shields, a second year student at St. Catherine’s College who worked as an agent for Martha Mackenzie’s slate said, “I’m so ecstatic about how we got on. We got all our slate elected.”

However Nathan Jones, who ran to be NUS Delegate as part of Tom Scott’s slate, ‘Team TED’. said, “This was an exciting campaign, and it was a privilege for me to work with such a talented and committed group of individuals.

“That their skills will not be used next year is a loss for our Student Union and for the students of Oxford. While we are naturally disappointed with the result, we congratulate Martha on a well-fought campaign.

“A disappointingly low turnout is indicative of the size of the work ahead in making OUSU more relevant and we know Martha will work tirelessly in seeking to do so.”

Mackenzie received considerable support from the Oxford University Labour Club (see box, left). Ben Lyons, a former OULC Co-Chair, said, “She will be a fantastic representative and a dedicated campaigner.
“It was exciting to be challengedby such strong opponents. They had many good ideas and campaigned honestly.”

It has emerged that one of the masterminds behind the national day of action against Vodafone, which forced up to thirty Vodafone stores across the country to close, was a recent Oxford graduate.

Thom Costello, who graduated from St. Catherine’s College with a First Class degree in English Language and Literature in 2008, played a key role in orchestrating UK Uncut’s campaign to demonise Vodafone, who allegedly evaded £6 billion worth of tax.

Earlier this month, the Vodafone shop on Cornmarket Street in Oxford’s city centre was one of the stores to have been forced to shut temporarily, as protestors formed a sit in at the shop’s entrance.

Thirty people forced the Vodafone shop on Cornmarket to temporarily close on Saturday, in a protest against corporate tax evasion.

While at Oxford, Costello was well known for his political activism. Rossa O’Keefe-O’Donnovan, a PPE graduate from St. Catz, said of Costello, “The guy is a genius, he got the top mark in his English finals and had multiple plays published and performed.

“He was also a hardcore environmental protestor, and was quite into direct action, so I guess this sort of thing doesn’t surprise me too much.”

Ben Lyons, a former co-Chair of the Oxford University Labour Club who knew Costello from St. Catz, recalled, “Thom was not so much involved in party politics, he was more into campaigns.”

While at Oxford, Costello took part in the occupation of the Clarendon Building on Broad Street, to protest against the university’s investment in BAE Systems and other companies which provided defence equipment to Israel, and to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza. Costello is pictured in the right of the photograph, leaning out of a window at the Clarendon building.

However, not everyone was as quick to sing the praises of Costello’s political activism. One of Costello’s peers from Oxford said, “Tom was very opinionated, always willing to cause a fuss about absolutely anything.

“He was really into politics and political activism, but I thought a lot of the time it was trying to be controversial for the sake of it, sometimes to the point of being deliberately awkward and difficult. I thought his willingness to use civil disobediance was far too lax.”

Costello, 22, is part of the organisation UK Uncut, who are planning a mass day of action next month.

It has been predicted that their next target will be Boots, who have also been accused of tax avoidance. Costello, who was operating under the pseudonym Sam Baker, is currently working for the television production company CTVC.

Bogus charity collectors and pretend policemen have been operating in Oxford.

Collectors posing as representatives from well known charities have been asking for donations from residents in the Cowley area and stealing bags of donations left outside homes to be picked up by genuine charity workers.

A spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation criticised the thefts as “akin to robbing people with heart conditions of a better quality of life.”
The reports came after a series of burglaries in Oxfordshire last week, where thieves posing as police officers targeted the homes of old age pensioners.

A group of men claiming to be police officers searching for drugs entered the homes of two elderly residents. The men raided both houses before leaving with stolen cash, mobile phones as well as credit and debit cards.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest by the Burmese military authorities. The alumnus and Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College has been detained for 15 of the last 21 years by the regime.

Crowds of people waited for over 24 hours outside her home to catch a glimpse of “the lady”, described by President Obama as “a personal hero of mine”. A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi’s first order of business was a meeting with an invited corps of diplomats, including representatives from Britain.

Her release came less than a week after the political party the Union Solidarity and Development Party, backed by Burma’s military, won the country’s first democratic election in 20 years.

Oxford University Press has named “refudiate” Word of the Year 2010, a spelling blunder made by Sarah Palin on her Twitter profile earlier this year.

In July, Palin encouraged “peaceful Muslims” to “refudiate” plans for a Ground Zero mosque. She was subsequently mocked by political opponents and the media, to which she retorted, “English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too”.

Described as a fusion of the words ‘refute’ and ‘repudiate’, OUP said the word suggested “a general sense of ‘reject'”. Senior Lexicographer Christine Lindberg described Palin’s word as a “time capsule” of the past year.

In 2009, the award went to “unfriend” and other contenders included “vuvuzela”, “gleek” and “nom nom”.

The news that Nick Clegg had to cancel his proposed visit to Oxford due to “an unfortunate clash of diary commitments” – according to a spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister – has been met with strong reactions from many students.

He had been scheduled to speak at the Oxford Union on Wednesday 17 November. Clegg’s spokesman said that the decision to cancel had “reluctantly” been made a few weeks ago.

He is the second senior Liberal Democrat to have postponed a talk in Oxford in less than three weeks, after Business Secretary Vince Cable pulled out over security fears.

The Liberal Democrat leader is currently facing criticism for breaking his pre-election pledge to “vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament”.

Clegg’s postponement has been viewed by many students as a means to avoid the hostility he may have met in Oxford.

Oxford University Labour Club President, Stephen Bush, told Cherwell that he was “not convinced” that the postponement was enforced by a timetabling clash.

“This proves that not only is Clegg’s tie yellow, his belly is too,” he said. Bush alleged that the postponement represented “just yet another falsehood from Nick Clegg”.

However Robin McGhee, Secretary of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, refuted this particular attack on Clegg. “We don’t really know what happened,” he said. “He probably didn’t make the decision. Really. He probably didn’t even know what his diary was for this week.”

McGhee believes Clegg is locked in a “slavish bromance with David ‘ma bitch’ Cameron”, an iron embrace which is also illuminating. “The mankini of power constricts and reveals,” he noted.

According to the OULD Secretary, “To vote in favour [of tuition fees] is an act of monolithic stupidity, cowardice, and cack,” that Clegg “needs to justify to students in person”.

However, while it was a move that “should be attacked,” McGhee did not feel that an attempt by Oxford students “to beat [Clegg] into a jelly” by protesting would achieve anything in the face of the police presence that would accompany the Deputy Prime Minister.

Ben Lewy, a second year PPE student, echoed worries concerning the reception Clegg would face. “The best Clegg could expect…would be the kind of mob that scared away Vince Cable. The worst,” he predicted, “would be a fire extinguisher thrown from the Union balcony. I agree with Nick.”

Plans to protest, though, have gained renewed momentum since the talk was postponed. The Oxford Education Campaign, together with the anti-cuts group ‘Save our Services,’ plan to make their way, “with music and jest,” from the Union to the Lib Dem offices on the day intended for the talk.

“Cleggers…pulled out of his booking when we started protesting tuition fees and scared him shitless,” a Facebook event advertising the protest said.

“Bring a saggy yellow/orange jumper if you can as there will be training on how to morph yourself into a chicken for maximum piss-taking effect,” the organisers urged.

Some students consider this “piss-taking” unfair. Sam Stoll, a second year student at Balliol, expressed his sympathy for Clegg. “Why do people have to find hidden meanings in what’s happened?” he asked.
“Sometimes I say that I’m going to cotch in someone’s room at a certain time, but then, you know, I realise I’ve double booked, and I’m supposed to be cotching with some different homies elsewhere”.
Stoll was delighted to learn that one day Clegg might even be his “homie”, for, the Deputy Prime Minister, according to his spokesman, was “always very keen to engage with students and young people.”
In response to Clegg’s no-show, two Oxford campaign groups did a ‘chicken flashmob’ at the Liberal Democrat offices on Wednesday to protest against cuts to universities and other public services.
On the flashmob’s Facebook page, one student, Leo-Marcus Wan, wrote, “There is nothing as self-empowering as protesting through the medium of chicken suits.”

Another student, Kit Johnson, added, “Let’s show them what happens when they decide to feather their nests at our egg-spence.”
A statement from the Oxford Union expressed their regret that Clegg had “postponed his talk” and that they hoped to arrange an alternative date soon.

Cherwell can reveal that the University refuses to disclose which funds it has investments in despite releasing this information under the Freedom of Information Act in 2008.

When asked which funds Oxford University Endowment Management (OUEM) invests in by Cherwell on 12th October, the University’s response stated that disclosure would “breach the confidentiality provisions of a number of agreements” between OUEM and fund management companies “and would therefore be likely to prejudice their commercial interests.”

Information on University investments was previously obtained by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) under the Freedom of Information Act in June 2008.

Their figures showed that the University invests over £6 million in UK and US arms companies, comprising about 1% of the University’s total investment.

Oxford University and its colleges collectively invest over £2 billion.
The decision made by the University to now consider the information “exempt from disclosure” has raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the investments which support the University’s teaching, research, and related activities, including bursaries.

“Staff, students and the wider public have a right to know where the University money is invested,” said CAAT representative Abi Haque.
“The information is commonly available at other universities and there should be no reason that transparency should be detrimental to Oxford University’s interests.”

Haque noted that other universities, such as SOAS, Bristol and Goldsmiths University of London have adopted “more transparent ethical investment policies.”

“It is difficult to imagine why Oxford University appears to be shrouding investment funds in secrecy unless funds have been invested in companies that could be considered dubious.”

William Liew, Deputy Finance Director for the Bristol University said, “We are open to give information out about our investments under the Freedom of Information; it’s public information and we have nothing to hide.”

Rachel Dedman, ex-president of Oxford RAG, said she felt “strongly” that Oxford University should adopt a more transparent policy on the issue of investment.

“All Oxford students are lifelong representatives of the university as alumni, and should therefore all have the right to know now how the university has invested its money, and have the opportunity to say if they do not agree.”

“Socially responsible investment should be a long-term goal for the University.”

Abi Haque noted that when CAAT issued FOI requests in October 2008, Oxford was “more challenging” than other universities to get the information from.

“It took a significantly longer amount of the time for them to reveal which funds they invested in. They appeared extremely cautious. I would say this was because they had invested in companies people don’t find particularly savoury.”

Oxford University Endowment Management is an investment office set up in 2007 to manage the University’s investment assets.

The University has said that although there is “a public interest in knowing how publicly funded bodies invest their money,” the money invested by OUEM are “not public funds and so the interest in knowing how these are invested is substantially weaker.”

“We believe that the weak public interest in disclosure is outweighed by… [our ability] to secure a good return on its investments.”

However Tim Davies, an Oriel graduate who now runs an independent research and consultancy organisation to promote social justice, thinks this justification is “misguided”.

Davies thinks that OUEM should be transparent about the source of its funds and investment profits because it is “investing on behalf of a public body”.

In February this year, the University’s Socially Responsible Investment Review Committee released documents saying that potentially providing arms to illegal regimes is not a “sufficiently compelling” reason to cease investment in weapons.

Yet Tim Davies commented, “the committee has failed to take into account University feeling”.

“This is the belief that arms investments, amongst others, are wholly incompatible with the progressive educational goals of a global leading University.”

The Oxford Socially Responsible Investment Campaign said that FOI requests made in 2006 show that University also invests in funds supporting “tobacco sales, manufacture of instruments of torture, and widespread environmental degradation.”