Chicago High School Must Weigh Decision To Include PETA Message on New Bleachers

Someone has been making off with the bleachers from Chicago’s Orr High School. For the last two months, under the cover of darkness, a guy has been stealing portions of the newly installed metal stands that face the football field, presumably to sell for scrap metal. The theft has forced school staff to drag bleachers from the indoor gym outside for events. Though a ↵suspect was arrested in the case, replacing the missing stands will still set the school back about $45,000.↵↵School budgets being as tight as they are, that’s not an easy figure to just pull from the ether. Most likely, the school would have to count on the largess of a corporate donor, though that recourse is always tricky when the subject of schools is at hand. Accordingly, the school is facing a decision on whether to accept an offer from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which includes $5,000 to help fix the bleachers along with a veggie burger lunch for the entire school. In exchange, the school would have to agree to have the new bleachers bear a message that calls for a boycott of McDonald’s because of alleged animal cruelty by the fast food chain.↵

↵↵⇥If there’s one thing rivaling teams and fans can agree on, it’s that scalding chickens in defeathering tanks is a real fumble. By spreading the message that McDonald’s needs to push its suppliers to adopt controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK)—a less cruel method of slaughtering chickens—Orr High could rally for chickens every day of the week.↵↵↵Beyond the painful corniness of that quote, there are obviously some who would object to the school granting near-permanent support to a PETA cause. And that’s a lot of hot water for the school to land itself in for what amounts to little more than a tenth of the money needed to replace the bleachers. It would be one thing if it were a message to simply not eat McDonald’s food, which would dovetail with a concentrated PR push by schools across the country promoting healthier diets. But, however righteous the cause may be, the proposed bleachers imposes a message that is too politicized to be included on school grounds without raising the hackles of a sizable percentage of students’ families. ↵

↵