The Hoya: Jan. 31, 2012

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THE HOYA

tuesday, january 31, 2012

DSP Monitors GU’s Vendors Sarah Patrick Hoya Staff Writer

A recent decision by the Department of Justice will allow universities to monitor labor conditions in factories producing school apparel.

Schools that are members of the Designated Suppliers Program, which was approved in December, will work to develop licensing terms that reflect fair labor standards. All apparel produced in the plants that accept the terms will contain a label that clearly outlines the workers’ labor conditions.

The program will largely mirror Georgetown’s relationship with Alta Gracia, an apparel line that uses a Dominican factory that pays its employees three times more than the minimum wage in the Dominican Republic, where the factory is located.

“The goal of this project is to create workable means so that a factory can operate while providing safe working conditions, the right to organize and a living wage, so the workers can make it in life and the factory can still be viable,” said Scott Fleming, Associate Vice President for Federal Relations and Public Affairs and interim chair of Georgetown’s Licensing Oversight Committee.

Fleming hopes the program will inspire the creation of more factories like Alta Gracia.

“I can’t help but believe that hopefully there is some way that having the DSP may help the financial viability of Alta Gracia,” he said.

The push was spearheaded by the Worker Rights Consortium, of which Georgetown was a found-

ing member. The group was founded in 2000 in response to student and university requests that school apparel be made free of sweatshop labor and includes more than 180 colleges, universities and high schools.

Through the committee, the university has worked to ensure Georgetown apparel is made without sweatshop labor and has aided the WRC in gaining approval for the new program.

Though the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division concluded that the proposed program follows U.S. antitrust law, the WRC cannot demand general licensing standards.

Instead, the program aims to offer something like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to factories that uphold a school’s designated labor standards, according to Fleming.

The WRC will be responsible for monitoring factories that participate in the program and reporting conditions to the member schools, a process that is supposed to foster an open dialogue between the consumers, companies and workers.

Fleming said that he isn’t sure what the Designated Suppliers Program’s effect will be on the Georgetown University Bookstore, which already sells Alta Gracia products.

He admits that the success of the program depends on consumers’ willingness to purchase materials from these factories.

“We are here because the consumers of these products want this, and they are the ones who have gotten universities to establish these policies,” he said.

Moot Court Is Anything But Bebe Albornoz Hoya Staff Writer

CHRIS BIEN/THE HOYA

Trebizond Investments CEO Caspian Tavallali (SFS ’14) leads an information session.

Student Investors Stand Apart Annie Chen

Hoya Staff Writer

Making its platform clear through an advertising campaign that invites students to “Become the one percent,” Trebizond Investments is working to distinguish itself from other campus investment groups.

Founded last year, the organization is the newest investment group at Georgetown and manages about $50,000. According to CEO Caspian Tavallali (SFS ’14), it differs from larger and more established groups like the Georgetown Collegiate Investors and the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Financial Credit Union in its focus on short-term investments.

“GCI and GUASFCU invest like our grandparents do. They invest on the long term,” he said. “In reality, we’re in college for four years. Very few of these investments you’re making will … ripen by the time you

graduate. We look at shortterm investments that we can make profits out of in maybe three months.”

Tavallali previously served as GCI’s secretary of the board and was actively involved in GUASFCU. Chief Operations Officer Alex Kondziolka (MSB ’14) said Trebizond also invests in higher risk funds and makes faster decisions than other investment groups on campus.

“We see opportunity and take it. In that way, [our] investment rationale is more risky,” Tavallali said. “But as young adults, we can take that risk.”

Tavallali added that the organization was also unique in its structure.

“Many of our members have little investment experience, but they have the opportunity to pitch investment ideas in front of peers,” he said. “That makes the investment less paternalistic, because no one is being lectured to.”

Both Tavallali and Kondziolka emphasize participation as the most valuable asset of the club. The group also prides itself in the use of a secret ballot when it makes investment decisions, according Chief Investment Officer Eric Vorchheimer (MSB ’14).

“A lot of times when you do open voting, you would either get almost 100 percent ‘yes’ or 100 percent ‘no,’ because when the CEO raises his hand, other people tend to just follow,” Tavallali said. “It becomes investing under peer pressure, and that’s not good investment strategy.”

Trebizond Investments also uses an online investing forum, which allows for a transparent log of investment rationale and creates a system of accountability.

“Even people who are not club members can see our rationale,” Tavallali said, “So people have more responsibility when pitching.”

GUSA to Launch Game Show, Prizes in SafeRides Program Sam Rodman Hoya Staff Writer

SafeRides will become a more exciting way to get around the neighborhood when Georgetown University Student Association launches a “Cash Cab”-like game in one of the service’s vans Thursday.

The program is intended to mimic the Discovery Channel game show, which poses trivia questions to unsuspecting taxicab passengers in New York City.

Each night during weekends, one SafeRides van is driven by a GUSA member.

Students who are picked up by this van will have the opportunity to answer trivia questions and win prizes ranging from bottled water and sports drinks to gift cards and Georgetown Cupcakes.

According to GUSA Vice President Greg Laverriere (COL ’12), GUSA hopes that student interest in the game will reduce incidents of students calling SafeRides but leaving before the van arrives, which can cause the drivers to fall behind schedule. He also sees the game

as a positive demonstration of student-administrator collaboration.

Once in the van, participants will be asked to list items in a single category, such as Major League Baseball teams, until they reach their destination.

At the end of the ride, prizes will be awarded based on how many items the students were able to list.

GUSA hopes to collaborate with The Corp and local businesses to provide prizes. For the pilot program, prizes will be financed by the university Chief Operating Officer’s office.

GUSA is working on a way to install lights, like those used in “Cash Cab,” that flicker when passengers enter to announce that they have been chosen to participate in the game.

The project was conceived

by GUSA senator Bridget Power (COL ’12), Laverriere and Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Augostini at a Hoya Roundtable event. Laverriere and Power have since been working with Augostini and the Department of Public Safety to make the game a reality.

Student participation in the

game will be filmed and posted to the university and GUSA websites. Participants will sign two waivers, one when they enter the van and another the next day, in order to ensure consent.

“If [students] sign a waiver while they’re inebriated, then the next morning they might think better of it,” GUSA Senior Counselor Sam Ungar (COL ’12) said.

The videos will also be edited to show what GUSA deems to be the best clips instead of posting footage of entire SafeRides trips.

The program will debut Thursday, because SafeRides expects to receive fewer calls on a Thursday night than on weekend nights. According to Laverriere, it will serve as a test run, and the game will be moved to Friday nights as of next weekend.

“Ideally it would be something that would be expanded to each weekend night. We’d definitely love to do that,” he said.

GUSA’s collaboration with SafeRides is slated to continue through the end of the year, as is the new quiz game.

Of the 78 cases brought before the Supreme Court since its term began in October, 73 had been argued beforehand — in a moot court at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Richard J. Lazarus, former Georgetown Law professor and Supreme Court advocate, founded the Supreme Court Institute twelve years ago after he noticed that Georgetown’s faculty boasted more practical Supreme Court experience than those at other law schools across the country.

In the past five years, the institute’s moot court has gone from hearing 40 percent to 95 percent of cases on the Supreme Court docket.

Two- hour cases are heard on a first-come, firstserve basis and are held about one week before the formal court proceedings. Only one side of any case is given the opportunity to present oral arguments in order to prevent the five panelists assigned to the case from revealing any information about one side’s arguments to their opponents.

“It is completely non-partisan, completely nonideological, there is no charge for any of the services. It is purely pro-bono and in the public interest,” Dori Bernstein, deputy director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, said.

Once the case is scheduled, the assembly of the panel of judges begins. According to Bernstein, the program draws on the many prominent Supreme Court advocates, former members of the Solicitor General’s office and recent Supreme Court clerks in the D.C. area.

“We usually try to get a mix of people on a panel so you get a range of experience … various backgrounds and various outlooks … because that is more likely to reflect what the advocate will encounter when they go to court the next week,” Bernstein said.

The panelists ask questions of the advocate presenting his or her argument for the first hour, then hold strategic discussions during the second hour. They do not, however, render a verdict on the case.

Bernstein, who has worked for the program since July 2010 and has 18 years of appellate experience in the federal government, said the pro-

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The moot court housed in the GU Law Center reflects the floor plan of the Supreme Court.

gram is tremendously helpful for the advocates who have the opportunity to receive feedback.

“This job has restored my sense of the legal profession as really being one filled with people who are committed to what’s best, I think, in our system of government — that it’s a democracy and that there’s room for differing opinions and differing points of view, and that we’re all best served when all those different points of view can be fully aired and fully explored,” she said.

Bernstein added that the ability to hear cases of national importance while they are preparing to do similar work is a valuable experience for students in the law center.

“The primary goal of the Moot Court Program is to prepare advocates to present their best argument to the Supreme Court,” Bernstein said. “The secondary goal, which is also of great importance, is to further the education of the students at Georgetown Law school because they have the extraordinary privilege of being able to observe these moot courts.”

The program often coordinates with professors so that the case being presented is integrated into the class curriculum as well.

“That’s just a tremendous opportunity because it brings the law really alive,” Bernstein said.

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