What were your friends doing on Thursday night? Preparing to go to West End? Rushing to complete Friday’s homework? Well, in the wake of the Chick-fil-A decision, my friends spent Thursday night huddled together in the LGBTQ resource room expressing their disappointment.
For the first time, I saw some of the most outspoken students on campus at a complete loss for words. Everyone was in complete shock, as no one even knew a decision was coming. Suddenly, one person voiced what must have been the collective feeling in the room: “I’m tired of fighting.”
I guess Chick-fil-A is here to stay. As the email we all received from the Vendor Policy Study Committee Report says, “There is no actionable cause to remove Chick-fil-A from campus.”
The email continued to explain that Aramark staff, not staff from Chick-fil-A, work at the on-campus Chick-fil-A and are covered under the Aramark non-discrimination policy; that Chick-fil-A has stopped donating to certain anti-gay groups; that the university believes in a free and open exchange of ideas; and that the university will continue to uphold the university’s non-discrimination policy.
First of all, the problem was never with the staff at the Chick-fil-A. I have never heard any cases of LGBTQ discrimination among those working in Chick-fil-A on this campus or have ever heard a single student complain about discrimination from Aramark staff. The Spectrum legislation was in no way directed at them.
Secondly, while Chick-fil-A has announced, in the Huffington Post article cited by the email, that it has stopped donating to Family Research Council and Exodus International, these groups account for less than one percent of their past donations to anti-gay groups. I’m still a little wary about saying Chick-fil-A has stopped all of their anti-gay philanthropy.
As for the last two parts, the email claimed this decision is a win for both the freedom of choice and inclusivity, but that’s not what it seems like to me. Back when tensions were high during the Chick-fil-A debate in the fall, many students used Chick-fil-A as a tool for intimidation of LGBTQ students and it could happen again. One student told me that, when the news broke during class, some students got up and celebrated, even though one of them had interviewed him before and knew that he was a member of Spectrum.
[quote]I sincerely hope that, in the wake of this decision, Elon will work to crack down on this kind of discrimination, but I’m not yet convinced. The administration had the chance to address actual discrimination on campus with action rather than rhetoric and they chose not to take it.[/quote]
You can eat your chicken. I don’t care. What I care about is that having this establishment on Elon’s campus legitimately makes some students feel unsafe, excluded and overlooked, and this decision basically tells those people the university doesn’t care.