Sustainability at the Cost of Inclusion
Benjamin Marcus
Brown Dining Services is failing its customers and the Brown community at large, and changes need to be made to ensure the University remains inclusive to everyone.
As an Orthodox Jew, I adhere to a strict kosher diet. I’ve been incredibly grateful that Brown has invested time, energy, and resources to open the Kosher Kitchen at the Ratty, which serves three meals a day during the week. Since its launch, the Kosher Kitchen has quickly become one of the most popular dining spots on campus, often boasting the longest lines and some of the highest-rated food in the Brown dining scene. But for me, the Kosher Kitchen is more than just a dining option — it is a lifeline. This semester, that lifeline is being cut.
In 2021, Brown’s Office of Sustainability and Resiliency mandated a significant reduction in red meat usage across campus dining to meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040. The first major step in achieving this goal is to cut red meat consumption by 25% by 2025 and by 50% by 2030. While Brown has made this move with sustainability in mind, this policy disproportionately impacts kosher-keeping students, presenting serious inclusivity issues.
As Brown Dining Services cuts back the availability of red meat, the cost of the meal plan remains exactly the same, leaving students paying the same price for a drastically reduced menu. For those of us who rely on the Kosher Kitchen, dining services staff have confirmed that red meat options have been slashed to just once a week for lunch and once for dinner, leaving us without any access to kosher red meat for the majority of the week. The nearest kosher red meat available outside campus? Close to 50 miles away in Brookline, Massachusetts. This isn’t just inconvenient — it’s discriminatory and runs counter to Brown’s mission of inclusivity.
Kosher students now have to compete with the entire student body for a limited number of red meat plates on the rare occasions that they’re offered. And when these dishes run out? Too bad. There’s no equivalent alternative as the turkey and plant-based kosher meals simply do not offer the same taste, nutritional value, or variety that red meat does. This isn't just about preference — it’s about religious obligation and basic dietary balance.
While Brown claims these changes are made in the name of sustainability, what the university is doing amounts to cost-cutting masquerading as environmentalism. Meals that once featured beef and lamb now feature turkey, a much cheaper substitute that according to USDA data costs around $3.94 per pound compared to nearly $7.50 per pound for ground beef. Despite these cost cutting measures, Brown students are still paying the same price for a dining plan that was retroactively changed after they forked over their money.
Price concerns aside, Brown’s new dining policies also remove students’ ability to make informed choices about their own diets. While signs posted in the Ratty push students to “Choose Plant-Forward Meals” with “3 Simple Steps You Can Take When Dining,” these decisions have already been made by university administrators. One of these administrators, Associate Provost of Sustainability Stephen Porder, claimed in a recent Letter to the Editor in the Brown Daily Herald that students “can choose to eat more sustainably at on-campus dining halls,” but for many of us — especially those with religious or dietary restrictions — that choice has been removed entirely. Brown has already made it for us.
These poor policy decisions could have been a simple oversight by Brown’s Office of Sustainability and Resiliency, though now that this issue has been brought to light Brown should immediately reinstate a baseline level of red meat offerings that better reflects the dietary needs of its observant students and the larger Brown community. If these changes are no longer feasible for environmental or financial reasons, Brown must offer partial refunds for meal plans that no longer provide the same value.
At the end of the day, students who are paying for full access to a diverse and nutritionally complete menu deserve more than substitutions that fail to meet their needs. Brown Dining Services is failing its customers and the Brown community at large, and changes need to be made to ensure the University remains inclusive to everyone, not just the vocal environmentalists. If Brown is truly committed to both sustainability and inclusion, the University needs to rethink this unpopular and discriminatory policy.