Alum named MacArthur ‘genius grant’ recipient

Hopkins alumnus Greg Asbed was awarded a MacArthur fellowship, or a “genius grant,” last week for his efforts to improve workplace conditions for farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida.

Every year, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awards about two dozen $625,000 grants to individuals who have demonstrated  “exceptional creativity” and “promise for important future advances.”

The MacArthur Foundation is a philanthropic organization that addresses global issues such as climate change, mass incarceration and threats to independent journalism. Recipients of the “genius grants” are anonymously nominated and selected by a committee, which has given 942 awards since 1981.

Asbed said that he is committed to improving human rights because of his family history as a first-generation Armenian American. His grandmother survived the Armenian genocide after being sold to a Turkish family when she was 13.

“In our family, the idea of universal human rights has always been a central tenet, sort of our family’s 10 commandments,” he said.

Asbed co-founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a worker-based humans rights organization. Within CIW, he developed the Fair Food Program, a system that helps protect workers from human rights violations like workplace harassment, sexual assault and wage theft. Asbed elaborated on the conditions he observed on a tomato farm in Immokalee.

“The conditions in Immokalee back in the early ‘90s were horrendous, in the violence against workers, violence against women, sexual assault, sexual harassment, even cases of prosecuted modern day slavery,” he said. “We worked to put 15 different crew bosses behind bars with federal prosecutors for holding people against their will and forcing them to work through violence and threats of violence.”

Under the Fair Food Program, large produce buyers like Walmart or Subway pay a small premium and enter a binding agreement with growers. These premiums are used to enforce an agreed upon code of conduct, which requires buyers to suspend purchases from those who fail to comply. The program allows workers to hold their employers accountable for better workplace conditions without fear of losing their jobs.

Asbed said that the commitments of these big buyers, which also include Bon Appétit, the dining facility caterer for the University, have allowed them to essentially eliminate workplace sexual assault and harassment and make sure that workers are paid a fair wage.

“We’ve created something of a private legal system to define, monitor and enforce human rights in the agricultural industry without having to rely on the government,” Asbed said. “We have created a system based on market power.”

He emphasized that he was not alone in the efforts to institute the Fair Food Program and credited the program’s success to the community of workers, consumers and retailers.

“The community was looking for change, looking for some way to have a voice at work, to have a job where they could enjoy dignity and respect,” he said. “That’s been made possible by the organizing of this community, the incredible creativity and fierce determination of this community to change their own lives.”

Asbed is currently developing the Worker-Driven Social Responsibility Network, which aims to spread systems like the Fair Food Program to underrepresented workers around the world to improve the livelihood of millions.

Asbed said that he feels lucky to be part of a community which shares his vision of universal human rights.

“Simply this idea that human rights are universal and should be universally enjoyed and protected — we all have a role in making that happen,” he said. “When you have a conversation about that with people, [they] are immediately understanding.”

Recently there has been a similar campaign at Hopkins to gain fair wages, job security and housing benefits for subcontracted workers such as those employed by Bon Appétit in the Fresh Food Cafe or Nolan’s.

Asbed said that the theory of subcontracting makes sense economically but leads to poor wages and benefits for employees. He encouraged students to engage with workers at Hopkins.

“That’s an excellent way for students, while they’re on campus, to stay connected to the world,” he said. “A lot of times students are so consumed with what they’re studying that it’s hard to even see the people that are working to make the whole system they live in possible.”

Though Asbed studied neuroscience as an undergraduate and later attended the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), he went to Haiti after graduation and saw the poor conditions of workers there.

He said that his experiences in Haiti helped him form a connection with the world outside of academia.

“I left myself open to the world and to where the world might take me if I listen to it,” he said. “There was a connection to a community, to a place and to the world that somehow nourished in me a path that I didn’t see while I was living here in the United States and going to college.”

He said that students should question the opportunities that seem easy to pursue and allow themselves to be open to new experiences that could take them in unexpected directions. He said that in natural and social sciences, it is important for students to question themselves.

“Ideology untested is just some fine-sounding ideas,” he said. “If you want to see real change happen you can’t rely on ideology — you have to see what works. You have to test it and see what actually moves the ball forward.”