The new student union is a $60 million facility named after the couple who donated $10 million to its funding, which will be paid over a 10-year term. Around $2 million was also donated, reportedly given in various gifts, according to Fresno State News.

Where’s the remaining money coming from? Us. The students.

After previous efforts in 2017 to vote for a fee referendum failed, two-thirds of students who voted approved a fee referendum of $149 per semester to support the construction of a new student union on campus. 

This fee is “ongoing with annual increases as approved per the fee referendum,” according to interim associate dean Amy Allen. This means Fresno State students will be paying more each semester .

Associated Students Inc.’s (ASI) public minutes for the senate meeting on March 9 said that Vice President Debbie Adishian-Astone confirmed the fee will eventually increase to up to over $500 per year.

Yet the building is named for Lynda and Stewart Resnick, who, Fresno State News reported, would be honored for the “transformational gift.”

This reflects the common trend in the naming of Fresno State buildings. The university’s tendency to name buildings after individuals rather than their use, location or other defining characteristics has already backfired. The revelation that the Library was named after a deeply racist former employee, Henry Madden, made national headlines.

Other universities have grappled publicly with the need to rename a building due to its controversy, such as Princeton. NPR reported that Princeton’s trustees voted in 2020 to rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Wilson College, removing the name of the alumnus and former U.S. and university president due to his racist actions against people of color, which have been in re-evaluation in recent years.

One might expect the university to do its best to avoid another scandal, but it may be diving headfirst into another one by naming the prominent new building after the Resnicks. 

After all, these are the same Resnicks whose companies have been involved in multiple controversies involving allegations of sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination and retaliation.

The Forbes 400 lists Stewart and Lynda Resnick as the 108th richest Americans, with their riches coming from The Wonderful Company. The company began in 1978 when the Resnicks purchased a farmland parcel “as a hedge against inflation,” according to Forbes. 

The years since the company’s inception have been marred with multiple lawsuits, however — with one coming as recently as last month.

The company is ranked No. 96 on Forbes’ list of the largest private American companies and employs more than 12,000 people worldwide with the juice company POM Wonderful, the bottled water company Fiji Water, Halos mandarin oranges, the pest control company Suterra, the flower delivery service Teleflora and much more. 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in an Aug. 25 press release that it would be suing Justin Vineyards & Winery and its parent company, The Wonderful Company, for failing to investigate accusations of sexual harassment after receiving multiple complaints.

The lawsuit alleges that male managers at production and restaurant locations in Paso Robles were “allowed to sexually harass female employees on a daily basis through unwanted and repeated sexual advances, sexual comments and sexually offensive conduct, including unwelcome physical contact.”

The companies denied the accusations and said they would “defend Justin against them,” reported the Paso Robles Daily News.

That’s not the first time companies owned by the Resnicks have been accused of discrimination and wrongful termination directed toward women. In 2018, Forbes reported that five former employees accused The Wonderful Company of pregnancy discrimination and wrongful termination. 

The report came five years after the company had already settled a lawsuit regarding similar allegations, according to Forbes. 

The case went into private arbitration, but one employee who spoke to Forbes revealed she was a former marketing director who alleged she was fired in 2016 while home on maternity leave with her newborn. She said the months prior to her maternity leave were particularly stressful, and former instances of discrimination toward pregnant co-workers had left her afraid. 

“All of a sudden I was blackballed because I chose to have a child. I was getting scrutinized for everything. Everything I was doing was wrong… I was told that Lynda was very unhappy with me. And I asked why, and I wasn’t offered an explanation,” she told Forbes.

While most major corporations face employment litigation at some point or another, the Resnicks have amassed numerous lawsuits and controversies that will forever be attached to their name thanks to the World Wide Web. Rather than accept the fallibility of corporations and their leaders, Fresno State should avoid the risk of naming a building after people still actively making business decisions — especially unpopular ones.

After all, the company’s most infamous controversy is an ongoing one that only stands to get worse over time. It’s all about how The Wonderful Company gets enough water for its agricultural empire in a drought-ridden state like California.

Journalist Chloe Sorvino exposed the danger of The Wonderful Company’s use of water in Forbes, revealing that while most of the Resnicks’ water comes from long-term contracts and assorted land rights, “around 9%” is bought on the open water market. 

Sorvino points out that while that might not seem like a shocking number, the Resnicks’ power and money enable them to outspend nearly any other purchaser in the market, meaning they can dictate the price of water in a state that desperately needs it.

Critics of the water use, which is further exacerbated by the Resnicks’ ability to bank water underground in the Kern Water Bank Authority, one of the largest water banks in the nation in which they own a 57% stake, argue that marginalized communities are left with little access to public water, according to Sorvino.

“The Resnicks are so dominant, and the disempowered communities are at the other end [of] a scale that is tipped mightily against them. When we put the food on our plate, we rarely think about the hands that make it and the situation they are in. That’s an injustice of unparalleled proportion,” said Char Miller, director of environmental analysis at Pomona College.

Sorvino reported that the Resnicks’ response to criticism was that they “obtained [the majority control of the water bank] legally,” and often redirect attention to their substantial  investments in the Central Valley and the broader community.

So-called transformational gifts to local universities could be considered a good way to deflect accusations of wrongdoing.

Now, I’m not saying Fresno State should refuse the money. A letter writer to the Los Angeles Times, commenting on a story about a similar “transformational gift” of $750 million from the Resnick family, says: “So what if the Resnicks’ gift to Caltech is less than altruistic?”

I agree. If the Resnicks want to give $10 million to Fresno State as part of their bid for good publicity, I say we take it. They won’t be hurting for money anytime soon.

But I will say that it’s a mistake to honor them by plastering their name on the new student union. Let the students who are paying the rest of the $60 million pick a name, or stick to something basic like the Bulldog Student Union rather than forever link us to the Resnicks.

Fresno State tells us that the RSU is being named for the Resnicks because they pledged $10 million to make the facility “a reality.” Why aren’t the students footing the bill for who knows how long getting the credit?