Florida Atlantic University Should Rethink Naming Rights Sale to GEO Group, says ACLU

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WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Florida Atlantic University to rethink its decision to sell the naming rights to its stadium to a for-profit prison company.

Carl Takei, staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said, “Florida Atlantic University should reconsider its decision to publicly associate itself with GEO Group, which has been sued repeatedly, found deficient by auditors, and harshly criticized by a federal judge based on unconstitutional conditions in its for-profit prisons. While there may be a short-term financial benefit, an educational institution needs to carefully consider the long-term impact on its reputation, its students and its faculty. There are costs to its legacy that the university needs to calculate.”

The ACLU opposes prisons for profit, which reap lucrative rewards from mass incarceration. In some cases, states agree to guarantee minimum occupancy levels that benefit the private prisons but make it harder to change criminal justice policies. Prison profiteering enables and depends upon America’s overincarceration epidemic. The United States is the world’s largest jailer; with just 5 percent of the global population, the U.S. houses 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.

More information about this issue is available at: www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/sponsoring-florida-college-football-team-cant-whitewash-private-prison