Collins, Udall Move to Ban Lunch Shaming Nationwide in Agriculture Funding Bill
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Udall (D-NM) announced that the fiscal year 2020 Department of Agriculture funding bill includes a provision they authored that directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take action to curb the practice of lunch shaming.
The language directs the USDA to provide additional guidance to program operators to address the ongoing issue of shaming school children for unpaid school lunch fees. Under the provision, schools would be encouraged to identify approaches that protect children from public embarrassment; communicate outstanding unpaid school lunch fees with the parent or guardian, not the child; and take additional steps to ensure that all students who qualify for free and reduced meals are efficiently enrolled to receive them.
“All students, regardless of socioeconomic status, should have the opportunity to learn in a supportive environment,” said Senator Collins, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “No child should feel ashamed or stigmatized because he or she cannot afford to pay for school meals. By prohibiting schools from refusing a meal as a form of disciplinary action or openly identifying a student who cannot pay or owes money, this important provision will also help to prevent hunger and allow students to focus on their studies.”
"Lunch shaming is a practice so cruel and backwards that most Americans would be shocked to know it happens. And yet school districts across the country are allowed to use these harmful tactics. Instead of stigmatizing kids who come from struggling households, withholding hot meals from students, and depriving some children of their only healthy meal of the day, we should be working to find solutions to end childhood hunger and to support families in need,” said Udall, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. “We know that hunger can be an insurmountable barrier to success in the classroom. That is why I was proud when New Mexico became the first state in the country to outlaw the practice of lunch shaming and I will continue to do everything I can in the Senate to pass my legislation, the Anti-Lunch Shaming Act, on a federal level so no child will have to spend their time at school feeling ashamed of a debt they have no power to pay.”
In April, Senator Collins joined Senator Udall and a bipartisan group of their colleagues in introducing the Anti-Lunch Shaming Act, legislation to ban schools from singling out children — such as by requiring them to wear hand stamps or do extra chores — because their parents or guardians have not paid their school meal bills.
For some students, meal shaming stands between them and their only meal of the day. No child should ever have to go to the school cafeteria and be publicly humiliated because they cannot afford their lunch. According to a 2014 report by the USDA, nearly half of all school districts used some form of lunch shaming to compel parents to pay for their child’s school meals. Often, students’ hot lunches are taken away and replaced with an alternative meal, such as a cold cheese sandwich. In other cases, children are forced to do chores in front of their peers, made to wear wristbands or handstamps declaring their inability to pay, or have their lunch thrown out as their friends and classmates look on. Unfortunately, stories continue to be told from across the country about practices of lunch shaming affecting students inside and out of school cafeterias.
Some of the states that have passed legislation to prohibit lunch shaming include: Maine, New Mexico, Virginia, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Texas, Iowa, Washington, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania; a variety of other state legislatures are currently considering measures to address this shameful practice.
