Letters to the Editor | Students can’t decry their Coke and drink it too

I am writing this letter as a member of Vassar’s Kick Coke campaign, a coalition of five Vassar Student Association (VSA) organizations (Vassar Green Party, Student Activist Union, Greens, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán [MEChA] and Amnesty International). We believe that Vassar College should hold Coca-Cola responsible for its widespread human rights and environmental abuses around the world, namely the murder of nine union leaders in Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants, and the depletion and pollution of water resources in India. Vassar can help hold Coca-Cola responsible for its crimes by joining the 34 other colleges and high schools around the world that have removed Coca-Cola products.

Coca-Cola is feeling the pressure of the international boycott of its products, a truly grassroots and global movement. In response, Coca-Cola, has initiated an aggressive public relations campaign to try to dismiss the widespread documentation of its crimes, amassed by the press and varying human rights and environmental organizations.

By kicking Coke, Vassar College will be sending a message to Coca-Cola, and all other multinational corporations, that its exploitation of labor and poor communities will not be tolerated. If corporations will exploit the conditions of poor peoples and communities by suppressing labor rights, in this case through violence and murder, and polluting local environments, they must be held accountable. By joining schools like New York University and Swarthmore, and local schools like Bard and Manhattanville, Vassar College can stand in solidarity with Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos (SINALTRAINAL), the union of Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plant workers, which has called for an international movement against Coca-Cola’s oppressive practices. Vassar College should not be providing corporations who are causing devastation for many people and communities throughout the world with a market for their products; Vassar should side with the people being exploited by Coca-Cola, not the corporation reaping billions of dollars inprofits through such practices.

Through our campaign’s many discussions with Vassar students, I am confident that most of us agree that if Vassar College has the ability to help people facing repression and exploitation at the expense of no longer having access to a specific corporation’s products on campus, then we should take action that puts people ahead of brand loyalty. We will soon be meeting with President Hill about the sale of Coca-Cola on campus. We have been in discussion with Dining Services, who have been extremely supportive, as well as Triple J Vending, the Offices of Finance and Administration and several college committees. Our request of the Vassar administration is to end the sale of all Coca-Cola products on campus (including Dasani, Fanta, Minute Maid, Nestea, Odwalla, Powerade and Sprite) and replacing these with locally produced sodas and juices.

Our campaign would love your support! Meetings are every Monday at 8:30p.m. in the Student Activists Union Office (College Center 213, above the Kiosk), and we encourage any individual or VSA organization to get involved. If you are interested in signing a petition supporting the removal of Coca-Cola from campus, look for us tabling in the College Center. For more information on the campaign or to sign up for our e-mail list, e-mail redunlea@vassar.edu. For more information on Coca-Cola’s crimes, go to www.killercoke.org or www.indiaresource.org. We are confident, given Vassar’s commitment to the well being of all people, that we can remove Coca-Cola from campus. Please help us in this cause, and show your solidarity with the SINALTRAINAL workers, poor communities in India lacking access to clean water, and other communities that have been exploited by the Coca-Cola Company.

—Reed Dunlea ’09