Minimum Meal Plan Requirement: Benevolence or Burglary?

Financial straits and trampled liberties are the fruits of W&L’s new dining policies.

W&L students from a variety of backgrounds seem largely opposed to the recent meal requirement hike, based on extensive interviews conducted by The Spectator.

One student with whom The Spectator spoke works 4 jobs to afford W&L. She said that the administration is “taking these very low-income students … and making it mandatory for them to spend the additional $700 on the meal [plan] … They are pocketing the money of those who [would otherwise] go down in meals.”

The student calculated that she would have to work 54 additional hours this semester to compensate for the newly imposed financial burden.

Another anonymous student, who works night-shift jobs to fund his education, told The Spectator: “I had originally planned on cutting costs for college by buying bulk and cooking my own food. The 15-swipe meal plan is costing me $2,300 more than it would cost me to make several nice pots of soup a week. If it weren’t for the forced meal plan, I wouldn’t have to take a loan out this year. Also, the fact that the price per meal increases the fewer swipes you have is outrageous.”

The price per meal referenced by the student is $11.06 on the minimum meal plan for non-Greek students. For reference, the popular downtown Lexington restaurant Macado’s serves a “Classic Burger” for $11.65 — and that includes a side of French fries. Fifteen swipes from W&L are almost as expensive as exclusively eating out.

On the other hand, international students feel that they are being forced to adopt American dietary standards that are not familiar to them. Siya, ‘27, the Outreach Chair of the South Asian Student Association and an advocate for the needs of international students, remarked that the new policy “forces [us] to be away from a taste of home.”

Moreover, many students already pay for housing with kitchen facilities. “I am being relegated to a position where it is more rational for me to not cook,” Siya remarked, “and I don’t like that.” Any student who chooses to cook for themselves is now being double-charged by the university.

The new dining policy also fails to conform to American principles of religious liberty.

According to the W&L website and dining service policies, religious exemptions are offered to students in rare circumstances and on a case-by-case basis. Faced with the changes, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Hindu students all applied for exemptions to the minimum meal plan requirement on religious grounds.

Christian and Muslim students applied to be exempt from paying for 15 meals per week to accommodate fasting in periods such as Advent, Lent, Holy Week, and Ramadan, when the religious students would not be able to eat 15 meals per week.

One Muslim student applied for an exemption to accommodate his Ramadan fast and cook meals that better suit his preferences. His request was denied.

In an email, K.C. Schaefer, W&L’s Director of Auxiliary Services, told the student that “W&L Dining does offer Halal … meats or fish regularly.” He continued, “If you are struggling to find good options, I’d recommend you set up a meeting with W&L’s registered dietitian in the fall, and he can help you look at menus across campus and plan your choices.”

Although the school did offer this student assistance in finding Halal food, it failed to address his request to purchase fewer meals during Ramadan. They know he will be unable to eat those meals, but they are charging him regardless.

One anonymous Christian student submitted an exemption, seeking to purchase 10 swipes per week so that he could fast during Holy Week, Lent, and Advent. He consulted his pastor and obtained his signature on an exemption form. In a statement given to The Spectator, he explained how the administrative bureaucracy took several weeks to respond to his request.

“I took the form to dining services, who took it and told me … that they had sent it to the Executive Director of Auxiliary Services, who would then send it to Student Affairs, who would eventually send it to the Office of Inclusion and Engagement.”

After a few weeks of waiting, the student received an email requesting to meet from Tamara Futrell, the Dean for Diversity, Inclusion, and Student Engagement.

“The meeting was not at all what I was expecting, to be honest, she was somewhat aggressive and quite inflexible,” the student said. He claimed Dean Futrell intimated that W&L does not offer religious exemptions.

The student was perplexed as to why Futrell processed his request, instead of Dining Services. “The Office of Inclusion and Engagement … seemed like the wrong people for the job … Dean Futrell was disrespectful in her attitude toward me, and remarkably un-inclusive for someone that was hired specifically to promote DEI.”

The Spectator asked Futrell to clarify the process for filing religious exemptions. In an email, she explained that “if a student requests a reasonable non-academic related accommodation for religious beliefs or practices, my office will engage in an interactive process with that student to agree to and implement the requested accommodation, or, alternatively, to determine whether there is another reasonable accommodation.”

“W&L is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for an individual’s sincerely held religious beliefs and practices,” she wrote.

In an interview with The Spectator, Schaefer did not believe any religious exemptions had been granted by Futrell’s office. “Not to my knowledge, no,” he said, when asked.

Low-income students should not be saddled with the heavy burden of a meal plan that is just as expensive as eating out. International students should be given the ability to cook whatever food is suitable to their diets, religious beliefs, and customs. Finally, religious students ought not to be forced to purchase meals they cannot eat.

It takes a lot to unify both sides of the aisle in 2024, and it takes a lot to unite the increasingly diverse W&L student body — but forcing students to pay for at least 15 meal swipes a week is an injustice big enough to do just that.