Justice Brews for Café Owner as She’s Awarded $4 Million After Being Kicked Off Boise State Campus for Pro-Cop Flags

A coffee shop owner who set up a storefront at Boise State University only to be booted off campus a few weeks later over pro-police flags was awarded $4 million for damages against her business.The owner of Big City Coffee, Sarah Jo Fendly, won a settlement against the university after filing a $10 million tort claim insisting her contract to open a shop on campus was taken away over backlash from the student body for displaying a “thin blue line” flag within her shop.The coffee slinger had to shutter her café and flee school grounds in the wake of protests after the death of George Floyd during a police stop in Minnesota. Students had questioned Ms. Fendly’s support of law enforcement and her motives behind displaying the flag — which some see as a dog whistle for opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. The shop was forced to close just 42 days after their grand opening.Ms. Fendly maintains that she had displayed the thin blue line in Big City Coffee in honor of her former fiancée, Sergeant Kevin Holtry of the Boise Police Department, who was left paralyzed after being shot while on duty. The café owner also says she was “slandered and libeled” and was forced off the campus by Boise State officials who interfered with her contract with food vendor Aramark. The school countered her claims, saying she left voluntarily.Ms. Fendley will receive $3 million for business loss, mental and emotional distress, and lost reputation. The remaining $1 million is being doled out for punitive damages and must be paid.“I’m thankful that the truth finally came out and grateful to the jury for their time and effort,” Ms. Fendley said after the ruling was made. “It’s been a long four years, and I’m just happy that it’s over.”Ms. Fendly’s attorney, Michael Roe, successfully argued that the college brass violated her First Amendment rights. The jury delivered a unanimous verdict in favor of the café owner.“[This case is] not about liberal versus conservative, Black versus white, gay versus straight. It’s not even about anti-police or pro-police. That’s not what this case is about,” Mr. Roe said in his statement before the jury. “It’s about highly educated, highly compensated government officials running Idaho’s largest university grossly mistreating a small businesswoman because they didn’t care about her, and doing so was easier than doing the right thing. In doing that mistreatment, they violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression.”BSU Administrators Alicia Esty and Leslie Webb, both of whom were named in the tort claim, said they plan to appeal to Idaho’s Supreme Court.“We respectfully but strongly disagree with today’s verdict and plan to appeal,” they said in a statement. “We were honoring the First Amendment rights of all involved.”The Big City Coffee ruling echoes a similar case in 2016 involving Oberlin College in Ohio, when the liberal arts institution was forced to pay 3.6 million to Gibson’s Bakery for false accusations of racism after the shop staff had chased out several Black students who were shoplifting.

Justice Brews for Café Owner as She’s Awarded $4 Million After Being Kicked Off Boise State Campus for Pro-Cop Flags

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