This summer, we covered the massive “buycott” of Chick-fil-A, which was the target of regulatory discrimination in Chicago because of the personal beliefs of the restaurant chain’s CEO.  Subsequently, New York University felt pressure to expel the campus franchise.

In The College Fix, UNC Chapel Hill student Jessica Kubusch reports that the saga continues: Conservative students are fighting back at continuing attempts to punish Chick-fil-A, and they are energetically supporting the First Amendment rights of business owners.

Conservative students – fed up with their leftist peers’ protests and petitions against Chick-fil-A and its CEO’s recent comments against gay marriage – have mounted their own campaign across the nation to protect and defend the restaurant chain.

They’re writing letters to the editor in student newspapers, telling people to back off. They’re eating at the restaurant more often, driving up its profits at some locations. They’ve even started pro-Chick-fil-A petitions to counteract petitions that seek to boycott or remove the eateries from some campuses.

Several conservative students argue that while their activist campus peers get their feathers ruffled by some people’s beliefs, they’re just as quick to push their opinions down others’ throats.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that these liberals want free speech unless it’s speech against something they believe,” Ralph D’Elia, a senior at the University of South Florida, told The College Fix. The Chick-fil-A on the Florida campus is the target of a petition to have it removed.

“I want Chick-fil-A to stay, and I’d be pretty upset if this petition has an effect,” D’Elia said.

Pro-Chick-fil-A petitions have spread to campuses across the country, including in North Carolina, South Dakota and Kentucky. Additionally, Kubusch notes that students are making their opinions known in other ways.

Letters to student newspapers in support of Chick-fil-A have also surfaced. Take a recent letter to The State Press, Arizona State University’s student newspaper.

“Does kicking a business off our campus simply because some of us do not agree with its CEO’s beliefs constitute as embracing all of those in our communities,” writes in student Joseph North. “I think not. Rather, it sends a message to students that we are, in fact, not free to have our own beliefs.”