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Chick-fil-A to remain at Cal Poly despite backlash over anti-gay bent

May 9, 2019

Same sex couples and their allies showed their support for gay rights at Cal Poly’s Chick-fil-A in 2012.

Despite mounting pressure and an Academic Senate vote urging university administrators to boot the chicken franchise Chick-fil-A from the Cal Poly campus because of the company’s support for anti-LGBT groups, the administration has decided to allow the business to continue to operate. [Cal Coast Times]

Chick-fil-A has a politically conservative company leadership, and the Chick-fil-A Foundation has reportedly made large donations to anti-LGBT groups. In turn, initiatives have arisen to ban Chick-fil-A from some jurisdictions and campuses across the country.

On Tuesday night, Cal Poly’s Academic Senate, the university’s faculty governing body, approved a resolution urging the administration and the Cal Poly Corporation to cut ties with Chick-fil-A and terminate its contract with the chicken franchise on campus. Cal Poly currently has a five-year contract with Chick-fil-A that was signed in 2018.

The university responded with multiple statements to media stating it disagrees with Chick-fil-A’s politics, but cutting ties with the company would effectively amount to censorship.

“To be very clear, university administration and Cal Poly Corporation leadership disagree passionately with the ideologies of some of the organizations to which the president of Chick-fil-A has chosen to make personal donations,” Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier said in a statement to KSBY. “However, university administration’s disagreement with the political views of a given business owner does not give the university license to effectively censor that business and prohibit if from continuing to operate at the university.”

In another statement to KSBY, the university said it does not believe in “responding to intolerance with intolerance.”

“Rather, we must model our values of inclusion — that means upholding the rights of others to have different perspectives and ensuring there is space in our community for differing viewpoints and ideologies, even those that may be in direct conflict with our own,” Cal Poly’s statement said.

Academic Senate Vice Chair Thomas Gutierrez has argued that Cal Poly should kick Chick-fil-A off the campus, and that by continuing to do business with Chick-fil-A, the university is financially supporting causes that conflict with its values. [Mustang News]

“We don’t sell pornography in the bookstore, and we don’t have a Hooters on campus — we already pre-select those kind of things based on our existing values,” Gutierrez said. “This is a similar thing, the difference is we’re actually profiting from this. So our money, every dollar a student is spending at Chick-fil-A, is going to these causes that are in violation of our values.”

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Its funny…I don’t ever recall a conservative group applying pressure to remove a Star Bucks….what has happened to progressives?…I thought they believed diversity was a good thing….


34

I had no idea we had a Chick-fil-A in SLO. I’m have to make a regular visit.There is nothing more dispicable than intolerant hate-filled fascists who try to force their will on others. The facility who voted to ban them should be ashamed of themselves.


39

I need to get up to campus sometime next week to show my support by enjoying a Chick-fil-A lunch.


48

Gutierrez, then you are your crew eat somewhere else.


38

Tolerance, Inclusion, Diversity, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Choice……let’s apply these to Chick-fil-A.


Tolerance means we ban them and forbid them from doing business.

Inclusion means Ex-clusion

Diversity means less of different things and more of the same things we approve of

Freedom of Speech means we can talk with permission from authority

Freedom of Association means we can associate with permission from authority

Freedom of Choice means we’re free to choose certain things and not free to choose others.


I think I have it right.


38

Although apparently very difficult among today’s scholastically enhanced bunch, how about this basis thought process…….dont eat there. Then they go out of business of move elsewhere. Problem solved and you didn’t even have to stage a protest. Send your checks to professor common sense, p.o. box 1111 chickfillet ave, chickenstrip Ca.


14

Kudos for supporting free speech….. especially on a college campus. But what’s next to protest?… the Newman Center for supporting Christian values? Jewish fraternities and sororities? How about removing all white males? (except for gay ones, of course, who get a pass). And who needs that violent and evil western culture sport of football? Indeed.


41

Dont forget the rodeo.


16

If they don’t want Chick-fil-A there, don’t buy from them. It’s that simple.


65

Freedom of Speech, as long as you only say what we want you to say…


54

It’s nice to see that Armstrong showed at least a touch of courage. A very nice change…


47

I wouldn’t call what Armstrong did courageous, more likely he didn’t to lose the money Chick-fil-A deposits into the special Armstrong retirement account. Of course Chick-fil-A will only make those donations as long as they make enough from people on campus buying their products.


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