Abstract
Lunch shaming is the practice of penalizing students who cannot afford to pay for their meals, resulting in them being denied food, served alternative meals, or publicly identified. The origins of lunch shaming can be traced to the financial pressures faced by school districts that struggle to balance tight budgets with the mandate to provide free or reduced-price meals to eligible students. Despite legislative efforts and advocacy campaigns aimed at mitigating the problems associated with lunch shaming, the practice persists, exacerbated by rising food costs and the expiration of pandemic-era food programs.
Many law journal and other articles have correctly argued that lunch shaming is bad as a matter of policy. This Article goes further: It is the first one to tie lunch shaming to the violation of a specific federal right—the right to privacy. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is designed to protect the privacy of student education records and to restrict the disclosure of personally identifiable information without consent. Publicly identifying students who have unpaid meal debts—whether by giving them a distinct meal (sometimes called “shame sandwiches”), marking their hands or arms (an administrator at one school stamped “I need lunch money” on an eight-year-old child’s arm), or subjecting them to other forms of public disclosure—violates these protections by effectively broadcasting their financial status to classmates, their parents or guardians, and school staff. These actions not only undermine the student’s right to privacy but also contribute to an environment of stigma and humiliation akin to bullying, notably at the hands of school administrators. This Article surveys the separate landscapes of school lunch shaming and FERPA, explores how lunch shaming practices contravene FERPA’s provisions, addresses the potential legal ramifications for school districts that fail to safeguard student privacy in their meal program administration, and recommends comprehensive federal anti-lunch shaming legislation as well as targeted actions to be taken by the Department of Education.
Recommended Citation
Ira P. Robbins,
Lunch Shaming and the Right to Privacy,
75
Emory L. J.
567
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol75/iss3/1