Students’ Unsavory Protest

Several months ago, 500 students, faculty and staff members at UC Irvine, responding to a poll to determine their favorite fast-food outlet, said their top choice was Carl’s Jr.--the same chain that some students are now trying to keep off campus.

It is not that the protesters don’t like the hamburgers. It is the conservative politics of the chain’s owner, Carl Karcher, that are distasteful to them. At least, that is the reaction of some student groups, including the Gay and Lesbian Student Union and the Women’s Resource Center, to Karcher’s application to temporarily serve food at UCI while the University Center is closed for renovation.

Theirs is a most unsavory position. A lot of people, including us, disagree with many of Karcher’s personal opinions. But Karcher’s politics-- how he stands on the equal rights amendment, abortion, or homosexual rights-- cannot be a litmus test to determine whether he (or anyone else) is eligible for a contract to provide a service.

Students who don’t like Karcher’s hamburgers (or Karcher himself) have the right to not buy them. But to deny him his right to sell them because they don’t like some of his thinking is entirely unpalatable, especially at a university where all ideas, no matter how half-baked they seem to some, belong on the table.