Ultra-woke New York University students stripped to their skivvies and protested their own school’s over-priced merch in a bizarre bid to call attention to worker’s rights.
Families touring the $91,000-a-year school last weekend got the free strip tease from roughly 20 students, who frolicked in their bras and underwear outside the Kimmel Center, demanding the school reveal exactly where its $106 sweatshirts, $80 collared pullovers and other items are made.
“Students, workers, stand together, solidarity forever,” the scantily clad participants chanted as they marched in the Village on April 11, during Weekend on the Square, when students and their parents flooded campus for a taste of college life.
Bearing signs reading “STOP SECRET SWEATSHOPS” and “DISCLOSE THE CLOTHES,” members of the group Students of International Labor Solidarity were trying to combat what they claimed were inhumane working conditions supported by the university.
“We use our leverage as students to work in solidarity with garment workers making apparel that the university profits off of in our bookstore,” SILS member Saesha Jindal, a sophomore studying social and cultural analysis, told The Post.
NYU’s bookstore features brands Champion, Lululemon and Nike, and sells items manufactured in countries including Pakistan, India, Jordan, Vietnam, Vancouver and the USA.
NYU is obligated to disclose its clothing supply chains but has only shared the final factories it uses, claimed Jindal, 19, and fellow SILS member Jamie Hesseltine.
NYU’s chapter of SILS was founded about a year and a half ago, and the group started demanding disclosure in October, Jindal said.
“They refuse to take any actionable steps to make that happen,” Hesseltine said of the school’s administration, whom SILS met with several times prior to the protest.
They suspect the university has something to hide about where it sources its pricey clothing.
“It’s an active decision to cover up labor violations,” claimed Hesseltine, 20, who is also a sophomore social and cultural analysis major.
All NYU merch is made under a “code of conduct that is intended to uphold fair labor standards, prohibit sweatshop conditions, and ensure compliance with applicable labor laws,” NYU Senior Director of Executive Communications Joseph Tirella said in a statement.
Licensees must meet those standards to maintain their relationship with the school, and that NYU actively works with partners to “monitor and enforce these expectations,” he said.
The demonstration, which was part of SILS’ larger “Follow the Thread” transparency campaign for disclosure, garnered “mixed reactions” from visiting families, Hesseltine said.
He explained many people seemed to support their fight for garment workers, while others were “dismayed” and baffled by the optics.
The effectiveness of SILS’ efforts is debatable, one critic said.
“These kinds of protests certainly grab attention. Shaming universities to cut ties may feel morally satisfying, but it can be short-sighted,” said Neetu Arnold, a policy analyst focused on K-12 and higher education at the Manhattan Institute.
“At its worst, this activism becomes political theater, generating attention without clearly expanding real opportunities for the workers activists claim to help.”
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