Letter to the editor: The University of Iowa must end their relationship with Aramark

By Sam Golden, Iowa City

Aramark is a multi-billion dollar company that provides food, facility management, and more services to health care facilities, universities, schools, prisons, stadiums and more. At the University of Iowa, they manage the athletic dinner services. Most notably, they run the concessions at Kinnick Stadium and other arenas on campus.

There are three main reasons why the University should not continue working with Aramark: they work in ICE detention centers, they intentionally serve poor food, and utilize prison labor.

Aramark has employees and job listings at Bluebonnet Detention Facility, Orange County Jail, St Clair County Jail, and more ICE detention facilities. Famously, in 2025, detainees in Bluebonnet Detention Facility formed the letters “

SOS” as a cry for help. ICE detention facilities have notoriously bad conditions with reports of

overcrowding, physical and sexual abuse, and

even murder within the centers.In

2025alone, 32 people died in ICE custody. These crimes, in effect, are being perpetuated and supported with the help of Aramark.

In over 450 prisons that Aramark serves, there has been a long history of poor and even dangerous quality of food that they provide to those incarcerated. Lawsuits have alleged that the company routinely served spoiled milk and rotten meat. In addition, in Ohio prisons that employ Aramark, it was a regular occurrence for there to be maggots and mice droppings in the food they served.

Finally, in Aramark’s IN2WORK program, they have employed over 20,000 incarcerated individuals. These prisoners are then classified as “students” rather than workers, thus making them ineligible for the pittance of money that they were set to receive. In addition, Aramark does not even need to worry about paying their “students,” as in nine U.S. states, there is no minimum wage for prison workers.

Overall, these three reasons are why we at the Young Democratic Socialists of America at the University of Iowa are demanding that the university cut their ties with Aramark.