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A Football Stadium Becomes Ground Zero in the Fight Against the New Jim Crow, The Nation:

A sit-in at the university president’s office; calls for their resignation; a packed, campus-wide meeting that resolves nothing and opens the door to further conflict. Such actions are notable enough on their own, but we’ve never seen a protest movement quite like what’s happening at Florida Atlantic University. For the first time on record, hundreds of students are raising their voices against the renaming of their school’s football stadium. FAU decided to sell the stadium’s naming rights to Geo Group, a notorious private prison corporation, and students are saying, “Hell no.” Their efforts signal something even more significant than pushing back against the inviolate prerogatives of a school’s football program. It’s a high-profile sign of the growing movement against our system of mass incarceration otherwise known as “the New Jim Crow.”

Geo Group will pay $6 million over twelve years to rebrand the football stadium, home of the FAU Owls. Protesters have now also rebranded the stadium, calling it “Owlcatraz.”

Students marched and occupied President Mary Jane Saunders’ office last week, submitting a letter that read, “We are protesting because we believe that institutions of higher learning like FAU have the responsibility to stand up to the systemic racism, corruption and human rights violations that define the prison-for-profit system, and advocate instead for the equality and human rights.

Editorial: FAU can’t talk its way past the GEO stadium controversy, Palm Beach Post

Had Dr. Saunders known about the contracts GEO lost in Mississippi and Australia, and why the company lost them? Since Dr. Saunders praises the diversity of FAU’s student body, what about the charges that GEO has mistreated Hispanic immigration detainees? What about GEO’s comments that immigration reform that grants legal status to detainees could be bad for business? Does the association with GEO “tarnish” all degrees FAU awards? (That question drew long, loud applause from students.) Was Dr. Saunders aware of the many abuse cases GEO has settled? Why was there no public discussion before accepting the $6 million? Because FAU touts its social work program, how does FAU reconcile the 12-year association with a company that must deal with accusations of human-rights violations?

For more,  see NPR and Guardian UK, Grid-irons: you are duly sentenced to a prison-sponsored stadium

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