Two hundred participants gathered at the steps of Beardshear Hall Friday to protest the placement of a McDonald’s restaurant in the Hub.

The protest began at noon with the sound of Credence Clearwater Revival’s song “Fortunate Son” playing in the background and students waving colorfully decorated picket signs.

The signs displayed such messages as: “No McUnion,” “No McISU,” “No McHub,” “People before McProfits $$$,” “No we don’t want fries with that,” and a depiction of Ronald McDonald with ISU President Martin Jischke’s face uttering the phrase, “Want cheese on that degree?”

The protesters then began a series of speeches where their main grievances against Iowa State’s placement of a McDonald’s in the Hub became clear.

“Our main grievance is the lack of student, staff or faculty involvement in the increasing commercialization of Iowa-so-called-State University,” student protester John Scriver said.

Scriver served as the master of ceremonies for the protest, introducing each speaker as he or she came forward. The first of the speakers was Tony Smith, a professor in the philosophy department.

“We are here today to protest. We should hold the university accountable to the standards it itself proclaims,” Smith said.

“The university has wrapped up a captive consumer base and handed it to McDonald’s. Sixty-five percent of all deaths in the United States are a result of diet-related illnesses. The type of food they serve, with a few exceptions, is exactly the type of food that is killing us,” he said.

Smith also commented on McDonald’s environmental impact and advertising practices, calling them “the last socially acceptable form of child abuse.”

Smith compared the Hub issue to “walking by a closed McDonald’s trash bin and smelling something. There is a chance there isn’t something rotten there, but there probably is.”

Other speakers followed Smith to the podium to express their views toward a McDonald’s in the Hub.

Pete Sherman, a professor of statistics and engineering, compared the university administration’s response to the protest to Marie Antoinette’s saying “let them eat cake or perhaps a fried pie.”

Milton McGriff, member of the September 29th group, drew connections between the university’s actions in the Hub and its actions toward the naming of Carrie Chapman Catt Hall. He said students were not contacted on either issue and that ISU was putting corporate interests first. He said both issues affected all students at the university.

“How come they didn’t contact the students? Follow the money,” McGriff said.

McGriff also mentioned a potential conflict of interest within a committee for improving food on campus.

“Several years ago they put together a committee to decide a way to improve food on campus. Their answer was fast food. The head of that committee was John Dasher, the owner of the Ames’ McDonald’s. They’re putting corporate interests before student interests,” he said.

Kathleen MacKay, dean of students, has a different view of the amount of student input in the decision to place a McDonald’s in the Hub.

“I was at a meeting of the Student Fees Committee where this was discussed. A special meeting had been called to get student input on food service in the Hub. There were a number of students there including members of the GSB and the Graduate Student Senate,” MacKay said.

“The McDonald’s proposal was viewed very favorably. Not all the students might want a McDonald’s, but most of the student representatives there viewed the idea very favorably,” she said.

MacKay said this meeting “wasn’t a ninth hour meeting” and was held in a timely manner. She said the meeting was held for the sole purpose of gathering student opinion and that the meeting “would fit under the open meeting laws.”

Doug Houghton, assistant dean of students who watched the protest, had no comment about the university’s decision to place a McDonald’s in the Hub.

One speaker at the protest, Neil Baumhover, compared his idea of the ISU campus to a state park with “squirrels and rabbits running around.”

“I don’t want to go to school in a state park when there’s a damn McDonald’s stinking up the place,” Baumhover said.

Another student, Sundar Rajan, said he just wants the Hub to remain how it always has been.

“I don’t want half a Hub. I don’t want a McHub. I just want my good old Hub,” Rajan said.

The microphone was made open to anyone who wished to speak about the McDonald’s issue, either for or against it, but no pro-McDonald’s speakers were in attendance.

Officials at McDonald’s, including owner John Dasher and members of the managerial staff at the South Duff McDonald’s, were either unavailable for comment or had no comment on the protest against placing a McDonald’s in the Hub.