Farewell to “Owlcatraz”

In February, ImmigrationProf reported that on an interesting development in sports philanthrophy. Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, announced the renaming of its football stadium after the GEO Group for a $6 million gift. GEO Group is a private prison corporation and owns a number of immigration detention facilities. One critic compared the naming to “calling something Blackwater Stadium. This is a company whose record is marred by human rights abuses, by lawsuits, by unnecessary deaths of people in their custody and a whole series of incidents that really draw into question their ability to successfully manage a prison facility.” ” The company has been opposed by civil liberty and human rights groups and immigrant rights organizations. It has been cited by state and federal regulators and lost a series of high-profile lawsuits.”

Here is the latest:  “Just hours after the latest student protest, . . . GEO Group on Monday withdrew its planned $6 million gift to Florida Atlantic University, a gift that would have put its name on the school’s football stadium. Controversy had dogged the gift from the beginning, as GEO Group’s status as the second-largest private prison operator in the country prompted jokes nicknaming the stadium Owlcatraz, after FAU’s mascot. More serious criticism came from human-rights organizations on the company’s reputation for housing prisoners in unhealthy, abusive squalor.”

KJ