HOW I CHALLENGED THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA TO DIVEST FROM PRISON SLAVERY & UNSUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES
The University of Florida (UF), despite its credibility as an educational institution, has a troubled past rooted in discrimination and racism. A university founded in 1853 accepted a group of 14 Black students for the first time in 1962, nearly a century after the university's origin. A transition from the rigid laws of the united states' segregatory policy would take time, however, where students today still face an alternative calculated and sinister oppression.
In 2020, I worked an administrative job at the UF's Special Collections Department at Smather's Library. Through that experience, I was able to hold high-profile, non-circulating documents that changed the course of history. While working at Smather's Library, I learned about Black Thursday, where in 1971, Black students at UF resigned from the university in mass with the focus of raising the Black population on campus to 13%, a number reflective of the racial demographics of the state of Florida (a sound ask of the university claiming to represent the state). As a result, these brave students had their spaces vandalized, faced violence, police brutality under peaceful protest and heavy discrimination by peers and faculty.
Through a successful campaign, those Black students eventually forced the university to answer to their plights. More than 50 years later, despite people of African descent composing of over 16% of Florida's population, a disproportionate 5% composes of the university today. This, amongst many other examples, has been a failure of the university to properly tend to the obligation it has as an educational institution to align with humane and equitable practices.
APPROACH
Leverage the student body to pressure the University of Florida's into divesting from Aramark, a food service provider infamous for human rights violations, including enslaving prisoners for their greed. Compose & introduce new core values, and a sustainable food system for the future of the university.
I teamed up with Dream Defenders, a human rights non-profit organization, and led a movement against the inhumane practice on campus. My team and I developed promotional media, took meticulous meeting notes, had difficult late night conversations, and learned from a vast array of professionals from numerous fields to learn on how to confront a nationally-recognized institution with a group of passionate college students and a dream.
The movement picked up momentum quickly. The fortunate participation from our student body led us to being offered to speak on radio shows, newspapers, news stations, and podcasts.
We eventually were invited to speak with the highest office of the university to present our claims. For months, they tried to toy with us, using corporate jargon and semantics to ultimately dodge accountability they had in the matter. We continued to use the participation of the student body as leverage.
Eventually, they granted us one meeting. One meeting with some of the most powerful people on campus. Face-to-face, a chance to be heard. We did our preparation and headed their way.
Upon entering the meeting, we quickly realized the faculty was interested in one result, a mediation that could only be agreed upon as long as they could continue to use prisoners as modern day slaves and protect their greedy profit margin. Not much of a mediation. We candidly for an hour, dodging egos, and ultimately reaching no agreement. I asked one of the UF higher-up's if their profit margin was more valuable than people's livelihood. He said yes.
In a room of people who had my university enrollment practically in the palm of their hands, I shot back with fire in my eyes.
"As faculty of an educational institution, you are responsible and of service to civilization and the education of your student body. Prioritizing a profit margin over the lives of people who are just like you and I is nothing but an embarrassment. I'm disgusted by the values you stand by and what this university stands for."
After the political game we had to play for months to even get in the room, I had little patience at the time. I'm sure you can guess that my statement did not make them very happy. I clearly wasn't either.
The room went quiet. I knew I had possibly offended the wrong people— though I had no fear. I knew that that was the point.
The meeting ended shortly after, and my team, fatigued and defeated went back to our homes to recollect ourselves. Understand me when I tell you that UF has an impenetrable wall of politics and jargon, serving as a veil that voids the university from responsibility of it's actions. They immediately stopped contact with us, and we continued to boycott and attempt to leave the university better than how we found it.
A year later, I received a text message saying that we did it. The front page of Gainesville news read that UF had finally divested from prison slavery and created a plan to vend food more sustainably, greatly inspired by the plan that we had proposed. We had tackled one giant within the complex and intertwined system of the prison industrial complex in the united states. Nice. What's next?
I don't know if it was what I said in that room, the financial implications that our student body created, or perhaps some other reason I may be unaware of. However, this campaign ultimately set the foundation of my career, where I'd devote my life to using my talents to help others.
https://www.alligator.org/article/2021/01/uf-students-announce-boycott-against-aramark
https://www.wcjb.com/2021/02/20/uf-students-call-for-name-change-of-building-named-after-segregationist/
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2020/10/09/university-florida-prison-labor-student-pressure/5935560002/