Chick-fil-A issues move to IUB

Seven students on IU-South Bend’s campus filed complaints against IUSB Chancellor Una Mae Reck for allowing Chick-fil-A to vend at the two main dining areas on campus once a week.

The students filed the complaint because a Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A franchise donated food to the Pennsylvania Family Institue’s seminar, “The Art of Marriage,” an event perceived to support discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Reck suspended service to review the facts, but reinstated the vendor on February 2.

The students requested a public hearing, but their complaints have been forwarded to the IU Office of Procurement Services in Bloomington because they have authority over vendors, according to IUSB spokesman Ken Baierl.

IU-Bloomington has a Chick-fil-A in the basement of the Wells Library, which several students are working to remove. Senior and telecommunications major Tom Tahara supports removing Chick-fil-A from campus.

“This type of stuff just doesn’t really fly that well in America anymore and I think this proves that the next generation realizes it and will not tolerate it,” Tahara said.

Jake Porter is a senior majoring in queer studies through the Individualized Major Program who also started the Facebook group “Kick Chick-Fil-A off IUB’s Campus!” after he heard what was happening at IUSB.

“I think it’s admirable that Chick-fil-A sticks to its religious beliefs, but I don’t think it’s appropriate that a public university like IU has it on campus,” he said.

Porter said that even if IU is contracted to have Chick-fil-A on campus for a few more years, he would like IU to release a statement that they don’t support it.

More than 9,800 people have signed an IUSB petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-indiana-university-south-bend-remove-anti-gay-chick-fil-a-from-campus urging Reck to suspend Chick-fil-A service on campus.

“According to students and faculty, Chick-fil-A’s substantial anti-gay donations run counter to IUSB’s diversity and anti-discrimination policies — which all vendors on campus must follow — and until Chick-fil-A makes a pledge not to support vehemently anti-gay causes, they should not be a service on IUSB’s campus,” the petition’s overview reads.

From 2003 to 2008, the company’s charitable arm, the WinShape Foundation, has donated more than $1.1 million to groups that oppose equality based on sexual orientation, according to the blog “Equality Matters.”

The WinShape Foundation participates in discriminatory acts against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community directly via their retreat centers and by funding organizations that push for legislative discrimination against the GLBT community, according to a letter sent to Chancellor Reck by Jason Moreno, IUSB senior and spokesperson for the Civil Rights Student Association.

Moreno said vendors on campus are required to comply with campus policies that state GLBT students should be protected from discrimination.

Chancellor Reck defended her allowance of Chick-fil-A in a statement posted on the Office of the Chancellor’s website.

“IU-South Bend is a public university where all ideas and beliefs are welcome,” Reck said in her statement. “Chick-fil-A is an American company that has the right to provide its food and resources to any event it wants to support.”

Moreno, who filed the petition, said that Reck’s decision involves the school with discrimination.

“It’s undeniable at this point,” Moreno said.

Bruce Jacobs, executive director of the Indiana Memorial Union, said he has spoken with the purchasing staff at the Office of Procurement and they are reviewing the entire matter at this time.