XPost: alt.education.university, alt.activism, alt.politics.usa.constitution   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   A coffee shop owner in Boise, Idaho just won a $4 million judgment against   
   Boise State University. She had claimed that the school forced her to   
   close the shop after a controversy erupted over her support for police.   
      
   Sarah Fendley opened Big City Coffee on the campus of Boise State in 2020.   
   In the window of her store was a small "thin blue line" sticker to   
   symbolize her support for police officers. Students noticed the sticker   
   and one wrote a message on her Snapchat account asking fellow students not   
   to visit. Fendley was sent a copy of the message and decided to address it   
   directly on social media.   
      
   “I remember feeling defeated,” Fendley testified on Thursday. “I said,   
   ‘OK, I’m going to address it.’ I always address these things when they   
   come up.”   
      
   In her post, Fendley talked about what the thin blue line means to her and   
   shared details about the shooting that left Holtry paralyzed. She even   
   attached a photo of him.   
      
   The post came up the following morning, on Oct. 22, 2020, in a class Boise   
   State President Marlene Tromp was teaching. While Fendley had cropped the   
   screenshot to not include the student’s name, Duke said some students were   
   concerned about possible doxxing...   
      
   Kevin Holtry is a former Boise PD officer who was paralyzed from the waist   
   down in 2016 when he was shot by a suspect in a gunfight. In 2017, Fendley   
   and Holtry were engaged. It's not clear from the story if they ever got   
   married but Fendley raised the story to explain one of the reasons why she   
   supported the police.   
      
   As for the doxxing claim, there was never anything to that from what I can   
   tell. One thing about student activists is that they lie a lot, especially   
   in an effort to make themselves look like victims.   
      
   In any case, Fendley's response created a firestorm on campus and she was   
   called into a meeting with a bunch of university administrators. Part of   
   that conversation was apparently recorded by one of the administrators,   
   but not the conclusion of it. So the lawyers for each side told different   
   stories about how the meeting ended.   
      
   Fendley claimed the university terminated her contract because of her   
   support for police, a move her lawyer said clearly violated her free   
   speech rights. Hours before the meeting started, administrators were   
   working on a press release about the business leaving campus, Fendley’s   
   attorney Michael Roe said, making it clear they had a single outcome in   
   mind.   
      
   “Senior administration at BSU caved to a very small number of student   
   activists,” Roe told Fox News Digital.   
      
   The university and their lawyer claimed they never forced Fendley to close   
   but that she made that decision on her own.   
      
   On Friday, Estey took the stand as the last witness before closing   
   argument.   
      
   "We didn't retaliate against her at all," she said. "She made a choice to   
   leave which was her choice to make, there was no retaliation."   
      
   What's not in dispute is that four days after the meeting, Big City Coffee   
   closed, just months after it opened. Fendley was out tens of thousands of   
   dollars she had spent opening the business with no way to earn the money   
   back. In 2021 she sued the school for $10 million. Portions of the   
   original case were dropped but clearly the jury agreed that the university   
   was at fault. Their deliberations only lasted about 3 hours so it seems   
   they didn't feel the defense had much of a case.   
      
   Fendley was awarded $3 million "for lost business, reputational damage,   
   mental and emotional distress and personal humiliation." An additional $1   
   million in punitive damages was directed against the school's then vice   
   president of student affairs.   
      
   This case is very reminiscent of another one that happened in 2016 across   
   the street from Oberlin College. Gibson's Bakery was accused of racism   
   after stopping a black student who was shoplifting bottles of wine from   
   the store. That student eventually pleaded guilty but a woke mob on campus   
   decided to punish the store and received assistance from campus   
   administrators who also stopped doing business with the bakery. The bakery   
   sued and won a large judgment. The school appealed and lost. They were   
   eventually ordered to pay Gibson's Bakery $32 million plus interest for a   
   total of $36 million.   
      
   The Gibson's Bakery case was dragged out by Oberlin for years so it could   
   be a while before the Boise State case is finally resolved. Still, it   
   sounds as if the jury felt this was a pretty clear case. Hopefully the   
   appeals court will accept their judgment.   
      
   https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/09/24/coffee-shop-owner-wins-4-million-   
   judgment-against-boise-state-university-n3794938   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)