NYU is putting off student demands to terminate its contract with Nike as the university faces issues related to immigration and research funding, administrators said in a meeting with student organizers after a rally last Monday.
David Ramirez, a member of NYU Students for International Labor Solidarity, said the group spoke with Owen Moore — the associate vice president of campus services — for around 25 minutes in his office after they approached him at the rally outside of Kimmel Center for University Life. At the demonstration, nearly two dozen members demanded that the university end its partnership with Nike due to alleged wage theft in a Thailand factory. Ramirez said Moore told the group that NYU is preoccupied with other urgent issues — such as battling the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education — and is unable to look into the issue at this time.
“It was a little bit disappointing to see that he doesn’t have that sense of urgency,” Ramirez said. “NYU already renewed their contract with Nike too, so that’s already another year of us being associated with Nike.”
Since October 2023, the group has held several on-campus demonstrations demanding Moore and athletics director Jake Olkkola cut the university’s contract with Nike. Nationwide demonstrations against the company follow the NYU-affiliated Workers Rights Consortium’s 2021 report, criticizing Nike of withholding over $900,000 in employees’ wages at the Hong Seng Knitting factory in Bangkok, which makes Nike garments. In response, the company stated that although temporary workers are legally entitled to receive partial wages, “most workers volunteered to take unpaid leave” in 2021.
Moore and Jason Pina, the senior vice president for university life, sent a letter to Nike directors last year seeking a “factual rebuttal” from the company. Nike told the administrators that “based on its own and third party investigations, it has not violated any agreements or laws.” Ramirez said that after the rally last week, Moore directed NYU SILS members to speak with the Student Government Assembly or NYU Athletics this time to better advance their efforts.
“It confused me because he is in charge of the contract licensing at our university,” Ramirez said. “Even though he can’t snap his fingers and automatically cut the contract, he does have massive influence to push the senior leadership team to cut the contract.”
The group began delivering weekly letters along with small treats such as candy to administrators — including Moore — at the beginning of this year to consistently push for an end to the partnership. Ramirez said that on St. Patrick’s Day, the group delivered an Irish poem, Lucky Charms cereal “without the charms” and a potato with a Nike logo on it to Moore.
“I was glad we were able to get a meeting, but we have to rethink about how we’re going to cooperate with him,” Ramirez said. “Even though this was a bump in the road, this is definitely still progress in the sense that we communicated with admin.”
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