UFF-FAU commends the recent public call to action from the Provost’s office and completely agrees our FAU community has much work to do in the fight against social injustice and systemic racism. As a minority-serving institution, this fight must be a central tenet of our mission, and we are delighted to have an ally in the Provost’s office. As the FAU administration will surely agree, our support of social justice and racial equality must go beyond words if we are to have any lasting impact in the world. Action is required.
For FAU to seriously “make significant progress in demonstrating commitment to our university platforms ‘Diversity’ and ‘Peace, Justice, and Human Rights’ in order to unify and expand efforts that address racism and discrimination,” FAU administrators must address the contradiction between these stated platforms and their continued willingness to accept financial ‘donations’ and maintain other ties to The GEO Group.
FAU must undergo a structural disentanglement from corporate powers that work actively to uphold institutional racism bound in carceral logics and mass incarceration. African Americans and Hispanics are far more likely than whites to be arrested, face significantly stiffer sentences upon conviction, and constitute a disproportionately larger share of the prison population compared to the overall U.S. population. Public higher education is intended to provide the tools to assist citizens out of poverty and foster collective and individual agency, character development, and critical thinking. In opposition, the privatized prison industry focuses on profit-making, expanding mass incarceration and social control, while punishing the poor and increasing racial, ethnic, and class inequalities. The systemic racism and classism of the prison industry affects current and future minority FAU students, faculty, and community members.
FAU administrators must not blur these boundaries, putting at risk the mission of higher education, including FAU’s values. We cannot claim to be against racial injustices when FAU legitimates and whitewashes a carceral system premised on such inequalities. We call on the administration to end the hypocrisy of calling for racial and social justice while having any connection to The GEO Group.
UFF-FAU will be hosting a roundtable on the links between higher education and the private prison industry, including The GEO Group, on September 4 at 3 PM. There will be brief panel presentations for about fifteen minutes followed by a Q&A session. Mark your calendars. We will send a follow-up link when closer to the event.