24-hour hunger strike failed to convince them
University of Chicago student government representatives are more worried about a food fight with their constituents than the societal problem of mass incarceration.
The General Assembly voted down a resolution to ask the university to bring dining in-house so that it avoids any complicity in the “prison-industrial complex,” and to source more food from local vendors.
It’s another setback for student group The Fight for Just Food (FJF), which staged a fruitless 24-hour hunger strike to convince the university to not hire Bon Appetit after UChicago ended its contract with Aramark.
Unlike Aramark, Bon Appetit does not serve any prisons, though its parent Compass Group owns companies that do, according to The Chicago Maroon.
Student activists have been protesting since November, when they created a MoveOn.org petition asking university officials to dump Aramark: “As long as UChicago Dining contracts with any company that serves food in prisons, we are funding the prison industrial complex.” As of Monday night it had 129 signatures.
FJF upped the ante in January with two banners accusing the university of perpetuating mass incarceration, one of which targeted Executive Director of Dining Richard Mason.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/27492/
The Maroon reported that Mason has said the university is barred from considering “political questions when making institutional decisions” – such as a contractor’s prison ties – because of its Kalven Report, a nearly 50-year-old document that pledges the university to “free inquiry” and “a diversity of viewpoints.”
The university chose Bon Appetit last month after a competitive bidding process, but did not cite Aramark’s prison service as a reason for dumping that company just halfway through its 10-year contract, the Maroon reported.
The Student Government General Assembly narrowly rejected a resolution on May 8 calling for a move to in-house dining and the sourcing of 40 percent of campuswide food from locally owned businesses on Chicago’s South Side, where the university is located, “within 3 years,” the Maroon said. Mason has said it would take three to five years to bring dining in-house.
FJF’s hunger strike on May 6 featured chants such as “Prisons profit off our tuition—how about prison abolition? This food funds prison labor—this is not a taste we savor. It’s a moral obligation to choose self-operation.”
Its own advocacy may end up supporting prisons, however: FJF has also supported the Teamsters, which not only represented Aramark workers at the university but also represent prison workers.
FJF is part of the university’s Coalition for Ethical and Sustainable Dining, another student organization that includes climate change, animal welfare, and sustainability groups, mirroring the goals of the Real Food Challenge.
Emails from The College Fix to several FJF members as well as a message its Facebook group were not returned. The university responded to an initial email inquiry last week but did not reply with answers by Monday night.
"Prison slavery" is something I believe in that needs change, but college protesting puts such a bad taste in my mouth thanks to social media warping the idea of activism into attention whoring.
>>45179
They got dropped because Aramark is a shitty company. I mean think about it, the slop they serve at some prisons is laughable, so would you really want to risk OKing those same meals at a college? College is already a prison in some respects, so they should at least make the food above average.
My college food was great early on, then nosedived and you could see the effect it had on the students. Flunking (or even doing well on) a test and then eating a shitty meal kills morale, which young and emotional students desperately need.
>>45178
>129 signatures
Wow so many! That's 0.89% of the student population!
Oh wow, a twenty four hour food strike? Those poor babies they must have been so hungry!
What a bunch of fucking pansy ass lily livered faggots. You obviously don't believe in your cause if twenty four hours is the longest you can go to protest for it.
>>45178
>hunger strike
>24 hours
pathetic. absolutely fucking pathetic. Only half-diabetic sugar-junky americans can think that 24 hours is a "hunger strike".
>>45183
It seems that this is what “activism” is, these days: just raising ‘awareness’ of some issue without necessarily doing a damn thing to fix it.
These students were
1) Protesting to gain
2) Public support for
3) Their student government representatives to
4) Ask the university to
5) Penalize (by exactly one contract)
6) A company which profits from
7) Prison slavery.
What was their best-case scenario? That all their friends join in, maybe causing the student government to ask a question, maybe causing Aramark to lose a contract and maybe go out of business, opening a niche in the market for another company to march right into? That's a lot of dominoes to topple for a pretty unimpressive result.
If you want to end prison slavery, why don't you just
1) Protest directly at
2a) The politician who could write a law to stop it, and/or
2b) The prison owner who makes it happen?
These students don't even deserve to be called protesters. That they pretend to undergo personal sacrifice in pursuit of a greater good is a disgrace to everyone who ever actually has.
Student governments were such a bad idea, students are fucking retarded and shouldn't be given power.
>>45178
>24 hour hunger strike
Fucking hell did they really think that's a long time?
>>45178
24 hour hunger strike. KEK
>>45178
lrn2fast
