An hour-long debate erupted at the Vassar Student Association (VSA) meeting on Oct. 26 when student representatives from the Kick Coke campaign asked the VSA Council endorse a resolution banning Coca-Cola products from campus. The vote was postponed after a discussion of the soft drink company developed into a more general question about the importance of student opinion in representatives’ voting behavior.
The Kick Coke group is a coalition of students from six different organizations who support an international movement to boycott Coca-Cola products. The group has existed since 2006. At the Council meeting, they presented a 72-page recommendation, which will later be given to the Committee on College Life (CCL) who will make an official recommendation to President Catharine Bond Hill. Hill will make the final decision as to whether to ban the sale of Coke products on campus.
CCL asked the Kick Coke group to gauge student opinion on the issue by bringing the document to Council to seek an endorsement.
Kick Coke holds that the Coca-Cola Company bears responsibility for environmental and human rights violations including nine deaths in Colombia. Company officials have released statements arguing that they have no control over these human rights abuses.
The Coca-Cola Corporation, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has subsidiaries operating all over the world. Coca-Cola sells Coke syrup to bottling plants, which manufacture and produce the actual soda. In India, Coke bottling plants have polluted and destroyed water sources. Meanwhile, paramilitary groups in Colombia have murdered, kidnapped and tortured employees who belong to unions in bottling plants there. Groups in both countries have called for a boycott of Coca-Cola products.
There is some contention over whether or not the Coca-Cola Corporation ordered, or at least could have prevented, these attacks on union workers. Members of the Kick Coke campaign believe that Coke is responsible for these deaths, since the Coca-Cola Corporation is a majority shareholder in the companies that own the bottling plants.
The Kick Coke representatives presented the results of an online survey that showed that 53 percent of students who responded would support banning coke from campus. The same survey indicated that 83 percent of students support more local soda companies on campus.
However, the VSA Council questioned the statistics presented by the Kick Coke group. Terrance Apartment President Riane Harper ’09 pointed out that the only about 400 students had responded to the survey. Other Council members pointed out that surveys seldom garner a large response and that small percentages are often used to gauge student opinion. Indeed, polling statistics are not entirely consistent. A miscellanynews.com poll created on Sunday night has so far garnered 144 responses. Of those, only 29 percent hope that the Council will pass the Kick Coke resolution; 67 percent have responded that they do not want Council to pass a resolution against Coca-Cola.
Nevertheless, Kick Coke representative Reed Dunlea ’09, who presented the resolution to Council, argued that the movement to ban Coke has strong popular support on campus.
“I’m a senior at Vassar College right now, and I’ve never seen six different organizations coming together and working on a campaign week after week,” he said. Dunlea also noted that the Kick Coke campaign has the support of the support of Sustainability Committee and Campus Dining.
But some, like VSA Vice President for Student Life Nate Silver ’08, remained skeptical of the statistics and the alleged support.
“To me what this comes down to based on the survey numbers that they’ve given us, is it’s clear that maybe about half this campus wants us to kick Coke, but that also means that about half the campus thinks we shouldn’t,” said Silver. “When half the campus wants us to do something I think it’s important for us to remember what our role is as Council.”
Silver pointed out that the resolutions that the Council has passed so far this year, including a statement against the Campus Dining changes and one supporting gender-neutral housing, have at their core been about choice, and about increasing the options available to students.
“This would be a resolution that would take away options,” said Silver. “We’d be making a choice on behalf of the constituency. If students really want to kick Coke, and we bring alternatives to campus, then Coke will kick itself.”
Dunlea argued that by bringing new products to campus, students’ choices would in fact increase—and that by making a statement against Coke as an institution, Vassar College would be taking an important stand.
“There’s a precedent for stuff like this to happen at Vassar,” he said. “We have a policy against selling products made at sweatshops at the Bookstore; we have a policy against cigarettes on campus. The College has taken stances in the past where if they find a problem with a specific company or a specific industry they remove it from campus.”
Harper agreed that, because this was an ethical issue, the Council should act regardless of student input. She supported a motion to amend the document to say that it represented the view of the VSA Council alone, instead of the student body at large.
“I don’t think we’ve proven in any significant way that a majority of students on this campus want to get rid of Coke, and I don’t think it matters,” said Harper. “It’s not a student opinion issue, it’s an ethical issue. It’s a moral issue. It’s about whether or not our school is really as liberal and progressive as it says, whether it can stand by and watch human rights violations.”
The majority of Council Members remained uncomfortable with voting on the resolution without adequate student input. VSA President Jimmy Kelly was also wary of voting at a meeting where four council members had sent proxies, and one was absent altogether. The Council decided to postpone a vote until their next meeting, in order to give each member of Council the opportunity to explain the proposal to his or her constituents and receive feedback from the student body. The next Council meeting is set for Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. in the College Center MPR.
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