Student Protesters Derail Fordham’s Plans to Add Chick-Fil-A to Campus Cafeteria

ROBYN BECK/AFP/GettyImages
ROBYN BECK/AFP/GettyImages

Student protesters at Fordham University derailed plans to add a Chick-Fil-A to the university’s cafeteria, citing concerns over the company’s stance on traditional marriage.

Student activists at Fordham University in New York City successfully forced the university to cancel plans to install a Chick-Fil-A into the university’s cafeteria over concerns that the chain’s public stance against gay marriage would infringe upon the university’s goals of inclusion and diversity.

“If they want to bring in Chick-Fil-A, they can bring in Chick-Fil-A, but we’re not going to partner with an institution, a corporation that has so strongly supported other institutions that work to destabilize and demolish movements for queer equity,” Renata Francesco said, who is the Co-President of Fordham’s Rainbow Alliance.

Deming Yaun, who is in charge of dining services at Fordham, argued that Chick-Fil-A does not accommodate special diets. “Certainly, there were some menu concerns as it related to special diets that Chick-Fil-A did not have a lot to offer for,” Yaun claimed. “They didn’t have a lot to address special diets.”

Administrators announced the decision to cancel the plan to install the Chick-Fil-A at the end of April, according to a report by The Fordham Observer. The announcement was met with praise by the student activists who had protested against the installation.

Rainbow Allice co-president Roberta Munoz claimed that while the decision against installing the Chick-Fil-A was encouraging, she’d like to see increased efforts from the university in stamping out discrimination against the LGBTQ community. “This is something that I don’t want to congratulate Fordham for, like ‘Oh my god, I’m so glad that you can see this. You’re such a good person. I don’t want to pat them on the back. You can’t say ‘Oh you’re such a great ally’ when there’s still so many issues with our queer students. Like great, love it, but keep going.”

In early April, students at Duquesne University claimed that the installation of a Chick-Fil-A on campus would put their “safe place at risk.”

Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com

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