The ongoing litigation has caused a McFlurry of activity in the law school.
Fast-food giant McDonald’s filed a groundbreaking lawsuit on Friday against the University of Tulsa, claiming that the university’s iconic perpetually broken soft-serve ice cream machine, currently on exhibition at the Pat Case Dining Center, is a direct plagiarization of their long-held intellectual property. McDonald’s is seeking $1 billion, or three semesters’ worth of tuition, in damages.
“McDonald’s trademark broken ice cream machine is a cultural icon that symbolizes our core values,” company spokesperson Kyle Labre told The Collegian. “This blatant theft of our McIP could deceive consumers into drawing some sort of connection between McDonald’s, a nightmarish, bloodthirsty corporate entity driven only by greed and expansion, and the University of Tulsa. And the ice cream machine isn’t the first thing that they took from us; I’ve heard from several students that they even used to have a clown in charge.”
Labre continued, “This issue also affects members of our frontline hospitality team since customers who could have been harassing them about the broken ice cream machines at our restaurants are now able to go to Pat Case and attack Sodexo’s underpaid employees instead. This eliminates a key opportunity for our employees to learn important life skills such as conflict management and resolution. As the world’s second-largest employer, we are deeply committed to our employees, and we enable them to optimize their usefulness. That’s why, even if they steal our broken ice cream machine, Pat Case hamburgers will never compare to McDonald’s — because our workers are the secret ingredient.”When asked how the fact that none of the restaurant’s 14,300 U.S. franchises are unionized fit into his claims about employee welfare, Labre responded, “hey, can we get back to the funny ice cream thing?”
In a statement that unintentionally included the name of the work-study employee who wrote it, TU promised to contest the litigation, stating, “this lawsuit is entirely without merit. While McDonald’s only introduced ice cream machines in 1956, the legacy of our broken ice cream machine dates to the early 1900s when an employee at the fledgling Kendall College broke the handle on the university’s only manual ice-cream maker, and administration immediately solved the issue by recruiting more National Merit Scholars.” The Collegian was unable to identify the veracity of this anecdote as the only source cited in the statement appears to have been invented by Microsoft Copilot.
The statement additionally explained that “a small cut of $31 million” to the university’s budget would go into fighting McDonald’s in court, eliminating the few remaining liberal arts majors in the process. While acknowledging that this decision may appear to be significantly more financially irresponsible than simply fixing the broken ice cream machine, the statement noted that the machine appears to be quickly achieving sentience and may react negatively to attempts to tamper with it.
When asked if they thought McDonald’s claims held water, a group of law students explained — in between snorts of caffeine powder — that they were unable to comment as they would be representing TU in court and were, therefore, bound by attorney-client privilege. One law student, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Collegian “I hope McDonald’s doesn’t win. If the university goes bankrupt, I won’t be able to take my Con Law final.” The student then opened a large folder of documents labeled “confidential,” pulled out a burner phone and started texting a contact named “Ronald.”
At press time, following several rounds of “heated” discussion, the two parties involved in the lawsuit reached an agreement for McDonald’s to acquire the University of Tulsa. McDonald’s plans to rename every campus building (with the exceptions of McFarlin Library and McClure Hall) and to christen the football team the Tulsa Golden Arches.
