September 16, 1998
Metropolitan Desk

About New York; God And Swoosh At St. John's
By DAVID GONZALEZ
WHEN James Keady took a course in Catholic social teaching last semester at St. John's University, his professor suggested that he look into sports and social justice for a term paper. It made sense to Mr. Keady, who was studying theology and working as a graduate assistant coach for the men's soccer team. He settled on a topic when he saw a newspaper article about allegations of unsafe conditions in the far-flung Asian factories making Nike products.

The topic hit close to home, because the university has been negotiating a sponsorship contract with Nike. Mr. Keady questioned whether St. John's, the nation's largest Catholic university, should be making deals with a company whose chairman and co-founder, Philip H. Knight, makes millions while the factory workers hired by subcontractors scrape by on what human rights advocates call starvation wages.

''People say Phil Knight earned it,'' Mr. Keady said. ''O.K. How many pairs of shoes did Phil Knight glue together last year? He made it on the backs of the poor.''

What started as a classroom assignment went from the realm of the intellectual to the domain of the practical. What if, as a matter of conscience, he could not wear the Nike logo when the deal was sealed? He said school officials could not ease his concerns, and his coach demanded that he either ''drop the issue, wear Nike or resign.''

So he quit.

''I knew I couldn't drop the issue publicly,'' said Mr. Keady, who now teaches freshman religion at St. Francis Prep in Queens. ''I'm a student of Mahatma Gandhi, and he said that resistance needs to be public and provocative if it is going to effect change.''
University officials and coaches say they are surprised by the reason for his resignation, saying they were under the impression that he had left to take a better-paying teaching job. David Masur, the men's soccer coach, said he was shocked when Mr. Keady resigned in late June. He said that only a month before, Mr. Keady had told him that he had no problem wearing Nike gear after the company had announced initiatives to improve its overseas business practices.

''I never gave him an ultimatum,'' Mr. Masur said. ''We did have many differences. Jim had to find a way where he could fulfill his duties as a graduate assistant, as opposed to running around promoting himself and promoting this issue.''

IN a way, promotion is what this boils down to, since Nike's contracts with schools usually include guidelines on where and how the ''swoosh'' logo must be worn, and involve coaches and officials in devising new ways to promote the logo. While outright criticism may not be prohibited in the deal, there is the expectation that everybody does his bit.

Mr. Keady said he changed his mind about Nike when he learned that its labor initiatives did not address the questions of paying workers a livable wage and guaranteeing them the right to organize unions. The Rev. Paul Surlis, his theology professor, said such concerns were reflected in Catholic social teaching that dated to the last century.

''Running through the whole body of teaching is the right to just wages, the right to organize, and that labor is not a commodity,'' Father Surlis said. ''The movement of jobs from this country to the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Southeast Asia effectively is treating labor as a commodity, where people in desperate situations will take any employment.''

For Mr. Keady, the decision was inevitable.

''What if at the end of the day, I say in good conscience that I can't wear their equipment?'' he said. ''I can't be a billboard for Nike. I can't be a marketing tool for Nike.''

Officials at St. John's said they have shared their own concerns with Nike during the ongoing negotiations, and would rather work with the company and have some influence than walk away. Robert Crimmins, the university's executive vice president, said St. John's is asking for independent monitoring of factories and has told the company that it wants verifiable assurances that workers are being treated fairly.

''If they don't live up to it, we won't be doing business with them,'' Mr. Crimmins said. ''We will do the best we can to get them to change. We think they are a good organization led by a moral individual who wants to do the right thing.''
In the wake of all this, some of Mr. Keady's friends wondered why he had left a championship soccer team he loved.
''One friend told me I screwed it up,'' he said. "He told me to get over it. I say there are more important things than games."

November 20, 1999, Saturday
Metropolitan Desk

Ex-Student Sues St. John's Over Contract For Nike Gear
A former graduate student at St. John's University filed a lawsuit yesterday against the university and Nike, claiming he lost his job as an assistant coach with the men's soccer team because he refused to wear team apparel with the Nike logo.

The man, James Keady, said he refused to wear shoes and clothing with the famous Nike swoosh because he believes the company's labor practices violate the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the mission of the university, which is run by Vincentian priests. Specifically, he accused Nike of abusive labor practices in third world countries.

"I think it's an abomination that amateur athletes and coaches are prostituted by these universities for millions of dollars" in contracts, Mr. Keady said at a news conference yesterday, asserting that Nike apparel is "produced in deplorable conditions."

He added, "I would like to see some sort of legal precedent set that would allow amateur athletes and college coaches the ability to exercise their right to say no."

A spokesman for the university, Jody Fisher, declined to comment on its contract with Nike. But the university issued a statement characterizing Mr. Keady as a graduate student who merely assisted the soccer program on the Queens campus during the 1997-98 academic year. The university also said that he chose not to continue as a graduate assistant the next year.

Mr. Keady, 28, who teaches religion at St. Francis Prep High School in Queens, said he started working with the soccer team in the summer of 1997, the year after the team won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship.

The lawsuit accuses St. John's and Nike of violating Mr. Keady's civil rights and of trying to ruin his reputation. Mr. Keady is seeking $11 million in damages. His lawyer, Joel Joseph, who is also chairman and general counsel for the Made in the U.S.A. Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group that seeks to reduce the nation's reliance on imports, said he believes the suit is the only one of its kind in the United States.

After receiving word of Mr. Keady's plans to sue, Nike officials said, they responded to him and Mr. Joseph in a letter documenting the changes the company has made in response to previous criticism about labor conditions at its factories. The company also called Mr. Keady's suit "completely without merit."

1998/10/04
Sunday Page

Love of soccer turned him into a political football
By Alexander M. Santora
Jim Keady, the father, and Jim Keady, the son, turn the current talk about parental influence on its head. If they believe they're right on an issue, they'll stand up for it, despite the consequences.

I first noticed Jim, the father, when he walked out of church in the middle of my homily against capital punishment. He stood in the vestibule and returned at the end of the homily to finish out the Mass. As I greeted people after Mass, he shook my hand and said, "With a homily like that, you can get away with murder."

I could understand his sentiments when I learned that the 55-year-old tavern owner grew up in Jersey City in the 1940s and `50's, when it had the second highest proportion of Catholics of any city in the country. Back then, Catholicism was a cultural thing intertwined with patriotism, unionism and some curious stands on social issues such as the death penalty. Jim Keady, the son, grew up in a different era of the Church but can be just as strident on the issues, especially the cause of exploited workers in Third World countries. The 26-year-old Belmar native had the best Catholic education could offer: Josephites at St. Rose Elementary, Christian Brothers at high school in Lincroft, and the Jesuits at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

But he never expected that when he won a graduate assistantship to study and coach soccer at St. John's University, Queens, New York, in July 1997, he would get an education in Catholic social justice no classroom would provide.

In his master's program in Pastoral Theology with a concentration in Social Justice, he studied the American bishops' 1986 pastoral, "Economic Justice for All." He was impressed with ideas like "workers have a right to wages and other benefits sufficient to sustain life in dignity." In fact, he discovered that the worldwide church since Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, "Rerum Novarum," has championed the cause of workers and the right to organize.

Little did he know that soon he might have to organize to get St. John's, the largest Catholic university in the country, to live up to its heritage and start practicing what it taught in the classroom.

Last June, St. John's contracted with Nike, the sporting goods company, for their athletic teams to use their products exclusively in return for an annual payment of $3.5 million. When Keady got word of that pending change in February of this year, he began to research their labor practices and learned that Nike does not pay living wages to workers in China and southeastern Asis, sought exemptions to pay below the minimum wage in Indonesia and pressured other countries to make the right to organize illegal.

All this despite record annual sales of $9.6 billion according to The New York Times Magazine of Sept. 13, 1998, even though profits dropped 49 percent.

Keady was incensed that the university would follow about 2,000 other colleges and universities and fly the Nike flag despite its flagrant worker abuses, "I think that a Catholic university has a duty to seek out social justice instead of becoming a partner to injustice."

Keady sought answers, wouldn't retreat and got an ultimatum from the head soccer coach, Dave Masur, "Wear Nike or resign." Despite losing his coaching position, a $4,500 stipend and free annual tuition, totaling $10,000, he resigned and wrote to Masur, "The reason is a troubling matter of conscience . . . paying a living wage to their workers is the key element in this campaign for justice."
And for Keady, his campaign has only just begun. He's still enrolled in the graduate program at St. John's and took a teaching job at St. Francis Prep, Queens, but he believes that St. John's has to sever it ties from Nike or tie it into concrete changes in its labor practices.

He'll find few supporters, however. Despite a healthy global economy and prosperity at home, most Catholics are far removed from the factories in China and probably wouldn't really care. In fact, 12 years ago the bishops' economic pastoral, which inspired Keady, was the last document to rile up real opposition because the Church was talking about matters — in the pocketbook — many could identify with. The bishops have retreated to more internecine matters like language in church texts.
Jim Keady doesn't aspire to be a prophet, even if he reluctantly takes a prophetic stance. He certainly sustained personal loss for an issue that does not affect him personally. That is, if you believe love thy neighbor extends to certain limits. Keady doesn't.

If every one who owns a Nike product throws it out today and buys some competitor's sneakers, Nike will change its practices overnight.

I could hear Keady whispering to the consciences of America, "Just do it!"