Boston University student newspaper wants 'homophobic' Chick-Fil-A off campus

In a now updated editorial, the editors of Boston University’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, called for removing a Chick-Fil-A food truck from near its campus and warned students to “think twice before buying a chicken sandwich from there.”

“[Chick-Fil-A] has deep-seeded [sic] homophobia. [It] has been caught multiple times donating to anti-LGBTQ charities and organizations,” The Daily Free Press wrote, “In 2017, $1.8 million went toward the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Salvation Army and the Paul Anderson Youth Home — all organizations with discriminatory and homophobic practices.” 

Campus Reform has covered stories like this before. Ever since it became publicly known that Chick-Fil-A’s president, Dan Cathy, personally opposes gay marriage, the presence of “America’s Favorite Restaurant” on college campuses has become a point of fierce contention. One New Jersey dean even resigned from her post after her university denounced Chick-fil-A’s “corporate values.” 

Campus Reform spoke with the dean exclusively in 2019. 

Watch the full interview above. St. Mary’s College in Maryland was  among the first colleges to ban Chick-Fil-A in 2011 after its Student Government Association (SGA) passed a resolution demanding that it discontinue its “business ties with Chick-Fil-A before the start of the 2011-2012 school year.” The resolution accused Chick-Fil-A of having links to anti-LGBTQ groups.

In 2017, two student senators at Duquesne University said Chick-Fil-A endangered the safety of the LBGTQ community. And in 2018, officials at Rider University in New Jersey vowed never to open Chick-Fil-A even though students chose it as the dining option they wanted most. Rider said the fast-food chain’s beliefs had not “sufficiently progressed.” 

The Daily Free Press’ editorial comes despite that Chick-Fil-A previously announced that it stopped giving money to organizations opposing gay marriage. 

Hours after posting the editorial, the editors issued an updated version clarifying that Boston University did not enter into an agreement with Chick-Fil-A allowing it to sell food on campus. 

”It was misstated that BU grants permits to food trucks on campus and can decide which businesses serve on Commonwealth Avenue,” the paper conceded, “That is the responsibility of the City of Boston. The article and headline have been updated to reflect these changes.”

The updated version did not include the original’s proposal to reward vending contracts with the University exclusively to “local, minority-owned restaurants rather than a homophobic chicken chain.”

In a comment provided exclusively to Campus Reform, Editor-In-Chief Colbi Edmonds said “BU really has no say over what food trucks are on campus, so we wanted to make sure that we clarified that immediately...We still, of course, support minority-owned businesses.” 

Follow the author of this article: Dion Pierre