Last week, NYU, the largest private university in the country, banned the sale and marketing of Coca-Cola products on its campus in response to Coca-Cola's human rights abuses in Colombia. Despite the fact that Coca-Cola board member Barry Diller was also on the Board of Trustees at NYU, the students were successful in banning coke as part of a nationwide campaign that has involved activists from 70 colleges and universities. Central to the decision was Coca-Cola's documented human rights abuses in Colombia where seven workers affiliated with the union SINALTRAINAL have been murdered in the past sixteen years while countless others have been harassed, intimidated, threatened, kidnapped, and fired for their union organizing (for more see killercoke.org). Rutgers University and Union Theological Seminary, two other universities in the New York metropolitan area, have also banned Coca-Cola. Worldwide, at least 20 colleges and universities have removed Coca-Cola from campus.

Here in Michigan, students at the University of Michigan has been actively involved in a campaign to cut the university's contract with Coca-Cola. Last June students at the University pressured the administration to conduct an investigation into Coca-Cola's human rights abuses. While that process had a strict timeline, including a provision that stated that if Coca-Cola had not agreed to an independent investigation by September 30 the contract would be cut, the University has not acted on Coca-Cola's failure to comply with the timeline. Activists at the University are continuing their protests and are expanding their criticism of Coca-Cola to include anti-union activity in Turkey and Indonesia.