It goes against the grain that Zola New World Bistro, 324 W. College Ave., decided recently to remove a controversial food from its menu after three weekends of protest by Alliance for Animal Rights.

Protests happen all the time, especially on and around a college campus. Just look at this past election season, we had protests against protests -- a level of absurdity in itself.

Yet, it seems that with most protests the result is that no action is ever taken.

All the time, words and actions fall on deaf ears or at least ears that already know the problem, and aren't going to change it anyway.

Zola's, up until yesterday, had served foie gras, as raised on typical farms.

Foie gras is a French dish made from the livers of ducks or geese that are extracted in some agronomy practices after the birds are force-fed through a feeding tube, gorging themselves until death.

The animal rights group does not want the item served or consumed for this reason.

The decision by the restaurant's management to remove conventionally raised foie gras from the Zola menu is a small victory for those protesters, but is huge in the scope of showing that voicing the right to free speech and exercising the freedom of assembly can get results.

Some members of the animal rights group have said that they are still worried the verbal agreement to now serve an organically grown version of the duck and goose liver delicacy is not good enough. What more does the group really want?

Zola did not need to take any action, and they did it in a way that was a compromise to both sides.

If the plan is followed through to fruition, the item will still be on the menu, but will not be obtained in the way that upset the group.

Just because an agreement written by the animal rights group was not signed by Zola management does not mean that the restaurant will not follow through with a plan to distance itself from the practice the group finds cruel to animals.

It is how the process is supposed to work. A group forms, followed by collective action against what they see as a problem, followed by a dialog and then compromise.

The next time this group or any other decides to post itself somewhere and use the First Amendment as a megaphone, results probably still will not happen.

Yet, evidently, this action that ended in the restaurant saying au revoir to conventionally raised foie gras has shown one thing.

Protesting is not a bunch of useless quacking.