The "contact us" form on Subway's website has a popup completely covering it that speaks to this issue.

Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest

We at SUBWAY restaurants place a high value on education, regardless of the setting, and have initiated a number of programs and promotions aimed at educating our youth in the areas of health and fitness.
We sincerely apologize to anyone who feels excluded by our current essay contest. Our intention was to provide an opportunity for traditional schools, many of which we know have trouble affording athletic equipment, to win equipment. Parents who home school their children make a tremendous commitment which we greatly respect, and can provide a terrific education. Our intent was certainly not to exclude home schooled children from the opportunity to win prizes and benefit from better access to fitness equipment.
To address the inadvertent limitation of our current contest and provide an opportunity for even more kids to improve their fitness, we will soon create an additional contest in which home schooled students will be encouraged to participate. When the kids win, everyone wins!

Here are the contest prizes;

Enter the Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest for a change to win great prizes for your child’s school!

Here’s what you could win:

1 Grand Prize Winner:

– Athletic equipment for your child’s school ($5,000 value)
– Scholastic Gift Bastket (sic) for your home
– SUBWAY Card ($100 value)
– See your story published on www.subwaykids.com and in Scholastic Parent and Child magazine.

6 Runners-Up:

– Scholastic Gift Basket
– SUBWAY Card ($50 value)

Hi Tim, your "airing left-wing prejudices" link only had a link to the same subway issue. Were you referring to something in the comments section?

Unless I'm really missing something "left wing prejudices" seems a bit of a hop.

You know, Ryan, I think you're right on this one, and I'm wrong. Wrong in the sense that the essay contest alone doesn't clearly indicate such, especially given the additional material you've cited, and a grand prize amount. More a matter of tone-deafness than prejudice, in retrospect.

On the other hand: (1) There was no reason to exclude kids from the other prizes, including the free scholastic book (fer heaven's sake), (2) many home school kids operate in fairly large consortiums, which provide sporting activities, field trips, etc. (And if you think regular school districts have trouble meeting costs, try paying for it without taxpayer assistance.) (3) Finally, the explanation given doesn't entirely make sense:

Our intent was certainly not to exclude home schooled children from the opportunity to win prizes...

How does one reconcile that with "No home schools will be accepted"? Insincere at least.

Many times in the past, I've been taken in by doing insufficient research on some left-wing talking point. With the advent of a counter-narrative, the opposite possibility presents itself too. I try to be careful, but apparently I still slip up sometimes. Yep, I agree, this was overblown and I fell for it.

Thanks!

Our intent was certainly not to exclude home schooled children from the opportunity to win prizes...

How does one reconcile that with "No home schools will be accepted"? Insincere at least.

Some wild guesses;
The people who who decided on corporate values were different than the marketing folks who planned the contest or the guys who lawyered it or who implemented the details. Their left hand really didn't know what their right was doing, to their detriment. There were even two spelling errors in the short document, so I question how carefully this thing was planned.

many home school kids operate in fairly large consortiums, which provide sporting activities, field trips, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the person who wrote the text had and has a more solitary vision of what homeschooling entails.

Or maybe the apology was just poorly worded and they meant they didn't intend to snub or offend?

I agree it makes no sense to exclude homeschooled kids from competing for books.