Last week’s nightmare news was hard to miss: 300 Bangladesh workers crushed to death in the collapse of an eight-story factory building. Sweatshop operators in that building had forced workers to come in that day despite clear signs of the imminent collapse.

This came six months after more than 100 people died behind locked doors in a Dhaka garment factory fire on Black Friday — a grim irony, given consumers’ obliviousness about the conditions of the people who support our lifestyle.

Is cheap clothing really worth all this carnage?

And who is responsible for inspecting the safety of the estimated 100,000 factories in the garment district of Bangladesh, a country on the short list for “poorest country in the world?”

Officials from the Dhaka Department of Inspection told Human Rights Watch that their 18 inspectors make it a priority to have “good relationships” with factory owners. One can only imagine.

Workers are crying out for an independent labor rights monitoring system — one not cozy with factory owners or the brands or retailers they produce for. (Brands like Nike and retailers like Walmart hire inspectors to check their factories, but these subcontractors have no incentive to find problems. For instance, Walmart’s inspectors failed to note any problems at the plant that burned down last November, perhaps because when the inspector made his pre-appointed visit, the exit doors weren’t locked.)

The good news is that members of the ISU community can actually do something about this because the university develops contracts with every company that uses the school name or logo.

Students at 180 other universities, including most major state universities, have persuaded their schools to develop a code of conduct as part of that contract, and to join the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent, labor-rights monitoring organization, to enforce that contract. The Worker Rights Consortium does its investigations by talking with workers outside the factory where managers can’t listen in and performing surprise visits.

So far, ISU administrators have resisted such efforts. That means that the Cyclone clothing you and others wear was probably made in a sweatshop. The workers who sewed it were paid only 3 percent of its retail value. They likely worked forced overtime without extra pay, in horrid and dangerous conditions, with no recourse for abuses except to simply quit.

It also means that while the university earns $1 million each year in licensing revenue, it is has been unwilling to pay the Worker Rights Consortium 1 percent of that — a mere $10,000 — to monitor the human rights of those whose toil and sacrifice earns them that spare change. In my recent radio interview with him, Vice President of Business Warren Madden stated that he personally wished industry standards were higher but implied that the ISU community would rather have its money spent on something else.

As the home to a major fashion show and apparel merchandizing program, not to mention a good number of decent human beings, Iowa State should take a stronger stand on this issue.