A horribly abusive private prison company wants to put its name on a stadium on my college campus — Florida Atlantic University. I don’t think my school should help a notorious company whitewash its name.

Sign Gonzalo’s Petition

Gonzalo Vizcardo via Change.org

The private prison company the GEO Group has been found to run some of the most disgusting prisons in America. One judge called a GEO prison a “cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions” — places where children were placed in solitary confinement, guards sexually assaulted inmates, and prisoners regularly attempted suicide.

The GEO Group makes $1 billion a year running private prisons like these — and now they want to spend some of that money to put their name on a stadium on my college campus, Florida Atlantic University.

This is not okay with me. I’m a student at FAU, and I will not see my university help a notorious prison corporation whitewash its name on the side of the tallest and most prominent building on my campus, which can be seen from the highly-trafficked I-95 highway and from the many office buildings and residential neighborhoods near my university.

I started a petition on Change.org calling on FAU’s President and Board of Trustees to reverse their deal with the GEO Group to license naming rights for a stadium on campus — will you click here to sign?

Private prisons are hugely problematic, because they run prisons based on profits, not what’s best for prisoners or for society. For example, an NPR investigation in 2011 found that GEO Group prisons have far fewer guards than government-run prisons. Prisoners have even died waiting for medical attention.

In fact, the GEO Group’s prisons are so bad that the state of Mississippi kicked them out of the state entirely, as did Australia in 2003. I don’t want their name on my university’s stadium if an entire state and country kicked them out.

Students and professors on campus are angry — we’ve staged protests at the university president’s office, and she’s even agreed to meet with us this Friday. I know that if enough people sign my petition, she and the Board of Trustees will see that giving the GEO Group good PR isn’t worth all the bad PR they’ll get for making this deal.

Click here to sign my petition calling on FAU’s President and Board of Trustees to reverse their deal with the GEO Group to put their name on the side of a stadium on campus.

Thank you,

Gonzalo Vizcardo Lake Worth, Florida