MELISSA THORNLEY/THE ITHACAN DARAKA LARIMORE-HALL (left), national organizer for the Young Democratic Socialists, rallies Ithaca College students protesting food service provider Sodexho Marriott Dec. 6 in Job Hall.

The student takeover of Ithaca College’s Office of Admission last week is being recognized as an important event in the continuing national campaign to remove Sodexho Marriott from college campuses.

The Ithaca College students and those at other schools nationwide are protesting, among other issues, Sodexho Marriott’s ties to private prisons through its principal shareholder, the Sodexho Alliance, which also owns shares in the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America.

Kevin Pranis, a board member of the Prison Moratorium Project, the organization coordinating the national anti-Sodexho campaign, said the actions at Ithaca College are significant on a national level.

“I think Ithaca was a landmark action,” he said. “It’s the first major direct action to happen on this issue. The issue has been on the map, but Ithaca has raised it to a new level.”

Pranis said it is hard name the exact number of contracts Sodexho has lost due to student protests. At every school Sodexho Marriott has been asked to leave there were other contributing factors into the termination of the contract, he said.

Two weeks ago at Buffalo State College, nearly 60 students occupied a stairway in an administration building for three hours after being locked out of the president’s office.

“The administration is non-responsive,” Buffalo State protest organizer Chris Goodman said. “They all say the same thing, which is nothing.”

Nanette Tramont, director of news services at Buffalo State, said the school is in the middle of choosing a new food service provider.

She said that a committee is looking over the different bids submitted and will give its recommendation to senior administrators on Dec. 15. Tramont said three students were on the committee, but she was not sure if any of those students were involved in the protests against Sodexho Marriott.

Goodman said the action at Ithaca College is important to the campaign at Buffalo State.

“I’ve sent an e-mail to the students at Ithaca, thanking them for raising this issue,” Goodman said. “We’ve been using [Ithaca] to fuel an upheaval on our campus. We’re definitely going to take direct action if we don’t see some progress.”

Sodexho Marriott is no longer the food service provider for SUNY Albany because of student protest against Sodexho’s refusal to recognize the dining hall workers’ union and questions about food quality from the administration last year.

“The University Auxiliary Services, which handles food service, and Sodexho agreed to terminate the contract this summer,” University Relations Director Mary Fiess said. “Sodexho Marriott did not provide the quality of food service that was the goal of the contract.”

Fiess said student concerns were not a major part of the decision to end Sodexho’s contract.

“The union issue is between workers and Sodexho,” she said. “There was no university position on the union issue.”

She said the college’s main concern was an E. coli outbreak in a dining hall last year, in which six students became ill.

There was student protest over Sodexho Marriott’s labor practices and their ties to private prisons, said Jessica Oppenhiemer, an anti-Sodexho student organizer from SUNY Albany.

She said 11 students occupied the president’s office for three hours last April 4 to protest Sodexho Marriott and the college’s connection to sweatshops.

A food services task force was set up and the school decided in July not to renew its Sodexho contract.

Protests have not been limited to New York state. Arizona State University is in the midst of its own battle over Sodexho Marriott.

Matt May, founder of ASU’s Young Democratic Socialists chapter, said the protesters’ main concerns are Sodexho’s ties to private prisons, their use of pesticides and the food options they offer.

May said ASU organizers are planning action for late January.

“We’re going to look very closely and openly at what Ithaca College has done,” he said. “It will definitely serve as a model.”