In this photograph taken by AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation, HIV activists protest outside the HERSHEY'S retail store in Times Square as the HERSHEY'S Easter boycott goes global over the school's AIDS discrimination on Friday, April 6, 2012 in New York. (Brian Ach/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)

HARRISBURG - AIDS activists are stepping up their call for a boycott of Hershey candy to protest the rejection of a student at a boarding school connected to the company because he is HIV-positive.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation planned demonstrations Friday in Hershey, New York City and San Francisco to coincide with the usual Easter surge in candy sales.

Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based group, says the policy of the Milton Hershey School for disadvantaged youngsters is the product of discrimination and ignorance.

School officials say the policy is designed to protect other students. But lawyers with the AIDS Law Project in Philadelphia, which has sued the school in federal court, say the boy controls his HIV with medication and poses no health threat to the 1,850 other students.