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opinion
Thursday, April 9, 2015
11
LEAD EDITORIAL
Aramark proves unethical once again The University should reconsider its relationship with the food services company
Comment of the day “Since when did a University have the right to establish a ‘tax’ on a subset of its student population to pay for other students?”
“Taxed Again” in response to the Managing Board’s Apr. 7 lead editorial, “In favor of ‘Affordable Excellence.’”
]In a new addition to an existing string of offenses, it has recently come to light that Aramark — the same company that serves food at the University — has been serving garbage to inmates at a prison in Michigan. More specifically, prisoners at Saginaw Correctional Facility have been served food that was previously thrown in the trash. In the past, Aramark has also underfed inmates and fed them dog food, worms and scraps of food from old meals, as well as sold generally degraded qualities of food to prisons. This past summer, the University renewed its contract with Aramark and set the contract for 20 years. This decision came with significant concerns regarding wages, as Aramark can pay its employees as little as the federal minimum wage — $7.25 an hour — and, since they are contract employees, they are not eligible for benefits from the
University. While we have yet to hear of negative altercations between Aramark’s U.Va.-based employees and the company itself, Aramark has not treated its workers well in the past. It has refused to bargain with unions, withheld union dues, avoided paying unemployment insurance taxes and allegedly pocketed workers’ tips and service charges. The University’s contract with Aramark is a business, and not ethical, contract. And in the world of business transactions, there will often be trade-offs between low-cost solutions and efficiency and the moral character of a company. In Aramark’s case, however, the trade-offs are simply not worth it. With a history of gross mistreatment of a population of consumers — i.e., inmates — and a history of mistreating employees, there is, at this point, very little to be said for
Aramark. It has, to its credit, arranged to take some positive steps for our University — including investing $20 million in improvements and renovations for dining facilities and committing to a $70 million escrow fund from which interest can be pulled to fund University initiatives. Such financial benefits could not come from a company less successful than Aramark, nor, according to Pat Hogan, the University’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, could they have happened without extending as long a contract as the University did. These are serious gains for the University. But, as outlined above, they come alongside serious, larger costs. Aramark’s investments are a financial incentive for the University to uphold this existing contract, and at this point, with a contract already set, it is high-
ly unlikely the University would undermine its relationship with Aramark and break that contract. So perhaps this can serve as a lesson for the future, if nothing can be done about the contract now. The University is not, itself, a business — it is an educational institution. While it can be swayed by financial decisions, it should not be constrained by them when ethical issues as egregious as Aramark’s come into play. Other schools, like Yale University and Hampden-Sydney College, have ended contracts with Aramark, even, in Hampden-Sydney’s case, after 56 years of partnership. It is by no means financially unfeasible for us to contract with a different company or even internally provide food services without contracting out. In Aramark’s case, ethical qualms are enough to justify finding a different source for our food.
Religious freedom isn’t a license to discriminate ubstantial controversy has cise.” Because birth control is not a been raised over Indiana’s re- basic human necessity — and thus cently passed Religious Freedom denying birth control does not necRestoration Act, which essarily inhibit an indi— in essence — openly vidual’s civil rights — RYAN GORMAN allows businesses to disthis decision may have Opinion Columnist criminate against poindeed been rational for tential customers by citthe specific case. Howing their right to the “free exercise ever, the true power of the Supreme of religion.” This piece of legislation Court lies in its ability to set legal has caused serious uproar across precedents, and the precedent set the nation; pundits, celebrities and for businesses to act as quasi-indipoliticians alike have denounced vidual religious entities is a dangerthe inhumane precedent the RFRA ous one. has established and called for its reArguments stemming from peal. This law raises pertinent ques- the supporters of the RFRA place tions about the concept of liberty a great stake in the Hobby Lobby in the United States; specifically, do precedent, claiming that the free businesses truly have the claim to practice of religion should not be liberties imparted to the individual inhibited anywhere on American by the Constitution? At what point soil. In other words, they are esdo an individual’s rights take prec- sentially arguing that the tenets of edence over those of a corporation? any particular religion are justifiIn recent history, the Supreme cations for discriminatory business Court has backed the claim that practices, or that the leaders of an the liberties of businesses should institution can dig around through be protected by the Constitution. their religious texts to find some The Hobby Lobby case of 2014 reason to deny service to an indivisively established in a five to dividual. While the extent of the four decision that businesses are “free exercise” clause is unclear, it indeed entitled to constitutional can be argued that as soon as reliliberties, as the Court ruled that gion touches others outside of the a for-profit retail corporation has sphere of worship, it ceases to be the right to deny contraception to a purely “religious” practice, inits employees by citing “free exer- fringing on the inherent mandate
of secularity in this nation. Specifically for Indiana businesses, this infringement on secularity poses serious issues, for what constitutes a religion? And at what point does the denial of service become not only a misuse of “free exercise” but a detriment to the livelihood of the patron? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued in her dissenting opinion in the Hobby Lobby case that “approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Consti-
can act — and thus can discriminate — in any way they choose. In fact, an Indiana resident named Bill Levin recently started The First Church of Cannabis as a result of this law’s passage, which supports the recreational use of marijuana in a state that restricts marijuana usage entirely. Furthermore, there is an infinite number of hypothetical situations in which the denial of service based on religious discrimination could cause serious harm to a customer. The RFRA upholds the right of an institution to act in any manner it desires so long as the business does not violate the “compelling interest” of the state, a notion that is hardly defined whatsoever by the legislators who created this law. While ambiguity can The precedent set for businesses to act as quasi- often be a legislator’s individual religious entities is a dangerous one.” best friend, there is a point at which discrimination based tution's] Establishment Clause was on religious beliefs passes from the designed to preclude.” Because the realm of being simply unethical to idea of “religion” is so inherently the realm of outright inhibiting an abstract, the RFRA has theoreti- individual’s right to life. The RFRA cally paved the way for an onset fails to accommodate for the fact of new religious organizations that that many citizens — especially in
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Indiana’s recently-passed statute neglects individual rights in protecting corporations impoverished communities — do not have multiple options for the goods and services they need in order to survive. Every time a citizen is denied service due to discrimination and does not have the means to obtain that service somewhere else, the state of Indiana has effectively valued the “freedom” of an institution over the worth of an individual’s life. An individual’s civil liberties are not contingent on whether an institution deems them worthy; this nation has fought since its inception for individuals’ rights to pursue their personal endeavors without unjust interference, a tenet that has expanded to nearly every demographic in the country in the past 50 years. Institutions should not be able to deny the right to life of citizens at their own discretion, and although in certain instances businesses should have some individual rights, those rights should never take precedence over the constitutionally-mandated civil liberties of the individual.
Ryan’s column runs Thursdays. He can be reached at r.gorman@ cavalierdaily.com.