Add one more Georgia college wanting to get their Chick-Fil-A boycott on.
Students at Georgia Southwestern State University, a 3,000-student college in Americus, have started a Change.org petition to stop the planned opening of a Chick-Fil-A on campus. It’s a move we bet would make marriage equality advocate and GSW Class of 1946 member President Jimmy Carter proud.
The petition comes courtesy of GSW’s Queer Straight Alliance and has just over 100 signatures at this point and their goal is to get to 200.
In the petition, the group acknowledges that Chick-Fil-A reduced donations to anti-gay organizations in 2012, and instead focuses on the profits donated to anti-gay groups from 2003 to 2011. They cite the donations made to Exodus International (of conversion therapy fame, since disbanded), the American Family Association (listed by Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group) and the Family Research Council (another to land on SPLC’s hate group list).
It’s unclear whether the group is aware (or cares) about Dan Cathy’s vow to stay out of social issues from now on, as the petition was created just days before Cathy’s announcement.
From the petition:
Chick-Fil-A does not represent the values embraced by the GSW community, and allowing such an organization to operate on our campus runs counter to the image of GSW as a place of inclusion and affirmation.
University campuses have justification to deny doing business with a food vendor, especially one that creates a divisive, potentially unsafe learning environment for students. There is no rational for a business operating on campus that has a record of funding hate group activity against a population of students represented within the campus community.
It is time to take action and defend the image of GSW as a welcoming environment for diversity and differences. We must protect the values of our Mission and Diversity statement.
The move by GSW echoes Emory University students’ successful bid to kick Chick-Fil-A off their campus last March, although Emory students used slightly different tactics. Leaders of seven student LGBT groups sent a letter to Emory administrators in October 2012. Then in December of that year, the school’s Student Government Association passed a resolution urging the school to reconsider Chick-Fil-A being an on-campus vendor. Ultimately, the eatery was removed, although school administrators said it was not a political move—a statement met with disbelief by students, but regardless they got their wish.
GSW’s petition will be delivered to the school’s Food Services Director, Shane Collins and Vice President for Student Affairs, Samuel Miller.