A group of students wearing “Make America Great Again” hats were booted from a non-profit coffee shop on the Fordham University campus because the cafe is considered a “safe space,” and the hats were triggering customers and staff.
In a shocking video obtained by Campus Reform, a student worker at Rodrigue’s Coffee House harasses and berates the group, screaming that the students were ““Fascism, Nazis!” and they have “three minutes” to vacate the premises.
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“You are threatening the integrity of our club. This is a community standard — you are wearing hats that completely violate safe space policy,” the woman — the coffee shop manager — says in the video. “You have to take it off or you have to go.”
When the students take their time, the woman becomes agitated, eventually screaming “Get out! Five minutes.”
When a student asks her to explain, she continues to shout. “Fascism, Nazis! You have three minutes.”
“I do not see fascism, Nazis on this hat,” one of the hat-wearing students answers. “I see America.”
In a later interview with the New York Post, the MAGA-hat wearing group says they weren’t “reading off a manifesto” or even talking politics. They were sitting in the coffee house discussing their respective study strategies for finals week.
According to Campus Reform, the coffee house is actually an extra-curricular “club,” and is staffed by a group of volunteers, and it’s ideological leanings are well known. There are also rules for patronizing the coffee shop. Among them, “Do not make assumptions about someone’s gender, sexuality, race, class, or experiences” and “No racism — No sexism — No homophobia.”
They claim to be an open space on their Facebook page, and a review of their services indicates that Rodrigue’s “is the only on-campus club that provides a daily, tangible service to all members of the Fordham community through low-priced, organic and Fair-Trade coffee drinks as well as an open community space.”
But their commitment to diversity apparently extends only so far.