Cynthia Newman

Rider University dumps Chick-fil-A, a professor resigns and the coverage is so-so

Now this is different: The dean of a university in New Jersey quits her job because she’s fed up with her employer’s anti-Christian bias disguised as a dislike for the Christian-owned Chick-fil-A restaurant franchise.

We’re reported before about how Chick-fil-A is a favorite whipping boy for a lot of media.

We noted that the chain stayed open on Sunday to accommodate desperate travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in late 2017. The year before that, in a highly symbolic act, Chick-fil-A people went to work on Sunday to provide food for people donating blood after the massacre at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. And Chick-Fil-A pays its workers well over minimum wage.

But that doesn’t get brought up often. Instead, the chain is portrayed as anti-gay, as you’ll see from this short CNN story.

Finally, one woman said “enough.” And as you see from Twitter, everyone from Franklin Graham to Relevant magazine is commenting on it.

(CNN) A dean at Rider University in New Jersey is stepping down from her post after the school decided to drop Chick-fil-A from a list of possible campus additions. The school's reasoning, says Dean Cynthia Newman, is an affront to her Christian beliefs.

Rider announced in November that it would no longer consider the fast food chain as a new campus restaurant option "based on the company's record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ+ community."

The restaurant chain had previously been one of the choices included in a survey sent to students about potential restaurant vendors.

Newman obviously read the small print and felt that what Rider was saying about Chick-fil-A could be applied to a lot of Christians.

Newman, the dean of college of business administration, said in a resignation announcement shared with the university's student newspaper that the school had made a "judgmental statement about Chick-fil-A's values -- values that reflect the essence of the Christian as well as other faiths."

Newman wrote that she asked administrators to apologize for offending Christians, but ultimately decided to step down after the university stuck to its original stance.

The crime committed by the founders of Chick-fil-A’s s to oppose gay marriage, a stance that reflects what most major religions say about homosexual relationships. Note that the key actions supporting traditional marriage were taken by the foundation operated by the family that built this chain — not the chain itself.


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