Sodexoâs contract with the school will soon be up for renewalâalthough exactly when is unclear.
âWeâre trying to show them we werenât joking around yesterday,â said coalition member Scott Davis, in reference to the 27 students who were arrested last night during a sit-in protest in Gerberding Hall. âThat wasnât some fun activism for us, itâs something we felt we had to do.â
The protests continued today as the schoolâs association of studentsârepresented by the undergraduate and graduate student body presidentsâdelivered a resolution to the interim president Phyllis Wise urging her to sever Sodexoâs contract with the school.
Davis, who is also the director of Our American Generationâwhich researched Sodexo's alleged human right's violationsâsays the campaign against Sodexo has been escalating for months, in part because school officials have been reluctant to hear the groupâs demands or give them a straight time line for when the concessions contract is up for renewal. âWe were first told it was next March,â explains Davis. âThen a few months ago we found out it was this April. Once we heard it was this April, they postponed it until July.âThe coalition fears the contract renewal was postponed until summer so that âstudents wonât be around to make a rukus about it,â Davis says.
Bottome line: âWe need to cut this contract.â
President Wise's office hasn't yet responded to a request for comment.