Coffee Shop Owner Awarded $4M After Being Bullied Off Boise State Campus For Pro-Cop Views

A coffee shop owner who was bullied off the Boise State University campus for being pro-cop has won a $4 million award.

Sarah Fendley, owner of Big City Coffee, was forced to leave the BSU campus in 2020 after she was harassed by students for displaying a pro-police flag following the George Floyd riots, Campus Reform reported. Fendley sued the university, claiming her First Amendment rights were violated, and after a nine-day jury trial in early September, she was awarded $3 million in damages for business losses and another $1 million for punitive damages, The College Fix reported.

“We’re very grateful,” Fendley’s attorney Mike Roe said, according to Idaho Ed News. “The system worked and we had a great jury and the clerk was great. Sarah got her day after all of these years. … We’re very pleased.”

Big City Coffee was only operating on campus for four months when it was forced out of its contract with the university due to campus bullying, the Fix reported in November 2020.

Fendley began supporting The Thin Blue Line organization in 2016 after her police officer partner was shot five times by an escaped prisoner. Her partner lost his leg and is now in a wheelchair. A police K9 unit was also killed trying to protect him.

Fendley has displayed Thin Blue Line flags at her other coffee shop locations ever since without issue, but when she put up the flag at BSU, students revolted.

“Big City is very supportive of the Thin Blue Line which we know is not supportive of people of color,” one student said at a September 2020 Inclusive Excellence Student Council meeting, according to the Fix. “I believe that they should have never been brought to campus and if it can be reversed it should be.”

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“I hope y’all don’t go there if you truly support your bipoc peers and other students, staff and faculty,” another student wrote on social media, according to Campus Reform.

The school reportedly panicked and forced the coffee shop off campus, prompting Fendley’s lawsuit.

“I’m thankful that the truth finally came out and grateful to the jury for their time and effort,” Fendley said following the verdict, according to Campus Reform. “It’s been a long four years, and I’m just happy that it’s over.”

BSU plans to appeal and take the case to the Idaho Supreme Court.

“We respectfully but strongly disagree with today’s verdict and plan to appeal,” BSU administrators said, per Campus Reform. “We were honoring the First Amendment rights of all involved.”