Boise State University administrators owe a coffee shop owner $4 million after a jury unanimously ruled the school officials violated the woman’s First Amendment rights in a conflict over her public support of law enforcement.
The jury awarded Big City Coffee owner Sarah Fendley $3 million for lost business, reputational damage, mental and emotional distress and personal humiliation, in a decision reached Sept. 13. Jurors awarded her an additional $1 million in punitive damages from the school’s former vice president of student affairs.
Fendley originally sued the university for $10 million after she closed her campus shop in October 2020, according to local reports, arguing administrators conspired to retaliate against her for expressing pro-police views on social media.
A lawyer for the administrators denied any retaliation and accused Fendley herself of trying to get the university to infringe on students’ speech rights.
Big City opened an on-campus location in September 2020, on the heels of the nationwide police reform protests that followed George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. Fendley’s support for law enforcement — she displayed a thin blue line sticker near the door of the shop’s downtown Boise location — immediately stoked anger among student activists, according to the suit.
“I hope y’all don’t go there if you truly support your bipoc peers and other students, staff and faculty,” one student posted on Snapchat after the shop opened. The acronym BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color.