Dear Catholic University Administration,

Our dining company, Aramark is a billion-dollar corporation that profits off of the abuse of prisoners in over 500 prisons and jails nationwide. It has a long rap sheet of underfeeding prisoners, serving prisoners unsanitary and sickening food, and a history of employee misconduct including cases of sexual harassment, and labor exploitation in the prisons it claims to serve.

Aramark also has non-food contracts with ICE, the agency that runs the horrific immigrant detention centers, where detainees report everything from overcrowding, being sprayed twice a day with harsh disinfectant, sexual abuse, forced labor, and lost children.

Beyond these basic human rights violations, Aramark has a vested financial interest in the continuation of mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex which disproportionately disadvantages people of color across America.

A university with stated pro-life ideals must extend their commitment to defending the dignity of human life to those in prison, and detention camps. CUA should not affiliate with a company that profits from mass incarceration, and from the plight of people behind bars. We urge the administration to divest from Aramark at the earliest possible date.

Other food companies such as Sodexo, AVI Food Stuffs, and Compass Group, are also are tied to the prison industrial complex, and therefore are also unacceptable.

We as Catholic University students understand the challenges and the amount of work that go into providing dining services for the CUA population. Therefore, we are dedicated to working with you, the CUA administration, in making the most responsible and informed decisions about our dining policy moving forward. We urge that the administration work with us, as you move forward in divesting from Aramark and in choosing an ethical food option.

UPDATE AS OF FALL 2020:

CUA has recently switched their food provider from Aramark to Chartwells. This was not because of our demands. This decision appears to have been made before our petition was created. Chartwells is a subsidiary of Compass Groups, one of the companies named in the last line of our petition as unacceptable as they also profit off of caging people through prisons and ICE camps.

It is clear that the administration does not take into account, or simply does not care about a food provider’s role in the prison industrial complex.

A disproportionate number of people incarcerated and in immigrant detention centers are people of color. While the administration has promised to form a committee to look into the possibility of racism existing on campus, they are more than happy to contract with a company who profits off of caged Black and Latinx bodies.

We as CUA stakeholders want a guarantee that when Chartwells' contract is up for renewal, the CUA administration will do their own research regarding who a potential food provider serves. Any that are involved with the prison industrial complex or the criminalization of migrants should not be accepted. Self operated dining should also be considered. Even if this change takes place after we ourselves have graduated, we are committed to this university enacting food justice.