Western Washington University has canceled its $150 million contract with food vendor Sodexo one year before the contract was scheduled for renewal, following an eight-month campaign by Bellingham students to end the school's 50-year relationship with the company, which has been accused of numerous human rights violations by international watchdog groups.

The University of Washington is now the last public university in the state contracting with Sodexo. (In 2001, Evergreen State College severed ties with Sodexo after students protested the company's human rights violations.) Last week, 27 UW students were arrested while protesting the corporation in interim-president Phyllis Wise's office.

“Wise had her own students arrested for peacefully protesting the UW’s contract with Sodexo, and yet Western is the school to end their contract,” said Morgan Currier, a UW sophomore and organizer in the UW Kick Out Sodexo Coaltion, in a press release sent today. “Students fighting for this contract cut at the University of Washington are thrilled that Western Washington has made the right decision to no longer support a global human rights violator, but now more than ever, disappointed in President Wise for failing to take this same step.”

Undeterred, UW students with the Kick Out Sodexo Coalition have continued staging protests outside Wise's office. The next—billed as the "largest rally yet!"—is scheduled for this Thursday, May 19 at 3:30 p.m. at Red Square in front of Gerberding Hall.