Today we bring you the first of our four-part series diving deeper into the particular context of each of the “4 for Fair Food” Tour’s stops, beginning with the flagship school in the nationwide Boot the Braids campaign: The Ohio State University.
After years of courageous student-led actions at OSU’s Columbus campus, including an historic seven-day fast by 19 students and community members, OSU students are fed up with President Michael Drake’s trail of broken promises. And they are not alone. Over the years, the students’ tireless efforts have garnered the support of countless people of faith and other consumers of conscience in the Columbus community as well as across the country, and they are joining forces this year in a coalition for action that promises a protest to remember!
This year, the OSU Student/Farmworker Alliance will march together with farmworkers and community members
to President Drake’s doorstep on March 8th to demand that the President finally be the person he claims he wants to be: “a national leader in preventing and responding to sexual misconduct.”
[...]
[...] When OSU first renewed its contract with Wendy’s, we offered these words about President Drake’s decision, and a preview of what was to come in the Campaign. Still today, in 2019, the analysis rings true:
[The OSU administration has demonstrated a] fear of alienating a corporate neighbor. Fear of taking a stand for fundamental human rights, despite the fact that more than a dozen corporations, dozens of universities, and tens of thousands of consumers had already blazed that path before OSU was faced with the decision. Even fear of their own students, causing administrators to put off the announcement until students were safely back at home and unable to react.
So, while President Drake and his administration opt for business as usual with Wendy’s in Columbus, human rights violations will go on in the fields, and they will go unchecked. You can be as sure of that as you can of the sun coming up.
And students at OSU will escalate their fight to cut the Wendy’s contract, and their fight will garner growing support from around the country. That, too, is guaranteed by this decision.
All of which could have been avoided if President Drake and his administration had employed a bit more logic and principle, and chosen to support real human rights and dignity in the university’s supply chain.
Instead, students, faculty, faith leaders, human rights experts, and farmworkers are left with no option but to prepare for the battle that lies ahead in Columbus.
Building off the anger and determination generated by that fateful decision by President Drake, farmworkers, students, and community leaders will be converging again this year in Columbus for a massive march through the heart of town and straight to the doorstep of the President. In light of President Drake’s flagrant disregard for the voices of farmworker women, who warned explicitly of the ongoing sexual harassment and assault that their fellow farmworkers were facing right now even as Wendy’s refuses to join the Fair Food Program, we have timed the protest for March 8th, International Women’s Day. Here are the quick details (and a list of caravans headed that way):
Where? Goodale Park, 120 W Goodale St, Columbus, OH
When? Gathering at 2:00 PM, stepping off at 3:00 PM
Just one more thing: More truly disturbing news emerges on OSU’s position on sexual violence against women…
In case President Drake’s decision to renew the Wendy’s contract were not enough of a slap in the face to farmworker women who face the threat of sexual harassment and assault every day they go to work to pick our fruits and vegetables, the OSU administration has been embroiled this past year in yet another scandal over the rights of sexual violence survivors. To summarize a complex story: In early 2018, the University received a slew of complaints against the staff of its Sexual Civility and Empowerment (SCE) office, the place on campus where students could seek support after being sexually assaulted. Shockingly, according to the Columbus Dispatch, instead of finding support and desperately-needed resources, “some survivors were subjected to victim-blaming, unethical and re-traumatizing treatment by SCE advocates. Some victims were told they were lying or delusional, suffered from mental illness, had an active imagination, didn’t understand their own experience or fabricated their story.”....
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