The Brown Daily Herald: Brown University
 Tuesday


Greg Asbed '85 named MacArthur Fellow

by Dylan Clark
The MacArthur Foundation

Greg Asbed '85 plans to channel the funds from the grant into the
Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-based human rights
organization located in Immokalee, Florida, that he founded.

Greg Asbed '85 was recently named one of this year's 24 MacArthur
Fellows. The achievement, often referred to as the "genius grant,"
comes with an award of $625,000 spread over five years. The money is
awarded based on three main criteria: "exceptional creativity, promise
for important future advances based on a track record of significant
accomplishments (and) potential for the fellowship to facilitate
subsequent creative work," according to the MacArthur Foundation
website.

The MacArthur Fellows Program has been active since 1981.
Approximately 1,000 people have been recognized as MacArthur Fellows,
19 of whom have been affiliated with the University. Each fellow is
nominated by individuals selected by the foundation. Approximately
2,000 nominees are further reviewed by a selection board before the
final few are chosen and notified of their award.

Asbed received the call notifying him of the award the day before
Hurricane Irma hit Florida, and he "was busy screwing plywood over our
windows when it came in, which made it all the more surreal," Asbed
wrote in an email to The Herald.

Though the money was granted directly to Asbed, he plans on funneling
all of the funds into the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the
organization he founded over two decades ago.

The CIW is a "farmworker-based human rights organization" that,
through advocacy, corporate campaigns, anti-slavery investigations and
community organizing, addresses the human rights crises in the
agricultural industry, Asbed wrote. His wife, Laura Germino '84,
directs the organization's anti-slavery program.

In 2011, the CIW - located in Immokalee, Florida - developed a
corporate responsibility campaign called the Fair Food Program. The
FFP has partnered with 14 multi-billion dollar companies - including
McDonald's, Walmart and Whole Foods, among others - that require their
produce suppliers to implement a human-rights-based code of conduct.
In addition, these companies agree to pay an extra penny per pound of
produce purchased from suppliers, which go directly into the farmers'
paychecks, according to the CIW's website.

The FFP has "put a stop to longstanding abuses like violence against
women, wage theft and even forced labor in the Florida tomato
industry," Asbed wrote. The program has been adopted by other groups
along the U.S. east coast and is "expanding into strawberries and
other crops, covering 35,000 (people) with its groundbreaking
protections," he added.

"Brown graduates make transformative contributions that build
understanding, influence policy and advance important movements that
are shaping the world," wrote Brian Clark, University spokesperson, in
an email to The Herald. "The work by ... Greg Asbed and Laura Germino
...  is among the most extraordinary examples of this - the MacArthur
Fellowship is testament to the tremendous impact they have had
advocating for the rights to fair working conditions for farm
laborers."

Asbed's work has been influenced in "a very round-about way" by his
time at Brown, he wrote.

Graduating with a degree in Neuroscience, Asbed planned on joining the
field after college. His education instilled in him the "willingness
to throw a beloved theory, or ideology or methodology away and to
focus only on what actually works, (which) is a hallmark of the hard
sciences, but not so much of the field of social change," Asbed said.

His plans changed after he spent three years in Haiti working for the
Papaye Peasant Movement, a grass-roots organization that aims to
support workers and reduce their dependency on outside aid.

Asbed cited the story of his grandmother, who survived the Armenian
Genocide, as another reason for his passion toward human rights.

"Through her struggle to survive that nightmare, she managed not only
to pass her DNA down to me but also a deep and abiding appreciation
for the importance of universal human rights," he wrote.

Asbed was nominated as a MacArthur Fellow by Kerry Kennedy '81 P'17
P'20, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights - an organization
that provides assistance to other human rights groups around the
world. They worked together after the CIW won the RFK Human Rights
Award in 2003.

"We were so deeply impressed by the transformational work that ...
they were doing to empower farmworkers," Kennedy said.

RFK Human Rights went on to help the CIW secure partnerships for the
FFP. "I've marched with them all over the country," Kennedy added.
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