Why Hampshire College pulled down the American Flag

The controversy began after the flag at Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in western Massachusetts, was burned.

|
Joseph Kaczmarek/AP/File
A man waves the American flag on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. Hundreds of protesters gathered at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., on Sunday after the school decided to temporarily remove flags from its campus.

Hundreds of veterans and protesters flocked to a Massachusetts college this weekend after the school decided to temporarily remove all flags – including the American flag – from its campus, a move many deemed unpatriotic and offensive.

Protests have broken out across the nation following President-elect Donald Trump’s unprecedented and unexpected victory. While many have taken to college campuses or city streets to decry the real estate mogul’s brazen rhetoric and what they see as threats to women, minorities, and immigrants, others have pushed back and criticized such acts. The result has been an increasingly divided nation.

The latest controversy began after students lowered the flag at Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in western Massachusetts, to half-mast the day after Mr. Trump won the election. Students said the symbolic move was a protest against acts of hate and harassment, which have spiked in the wake of the unexpected victory. A day later, the flag was burnt by an unknown party, prompting the campus to launch an investigation into the incident.

While a new flag was unveiled for Veteran’s Day (Nov. 11), the college decided to temporarily remove it after students decried it as a symbol of inequality across the nation. Administrators hoped that the decision would facilitate a conversation about the many symbolic messages the flag represents, including that of "a powerful symbol of fear" to some.

But for others, the removal of the American flag represented an attitude of disrespect toward veterans and those who lost their lives fighting to protect the country. "Our flag is a symbol of our country," Gamalier Rosa, a veteran who served in Iraq and helped to organize the protest, told The Boston Globe. "Our clearest message is that we ask others to respect the flag as we do."

The school’s president, Jonathan Lash, met with members of the local VFW before the protest and he plans to do so again in the coming weeks. While both sides felt optimistic about the meeting, Mr. Lash hasn’t agreed to raise the flag again just yet, and remains dedicated to an open and inclusive dialogue on the campus.

"If we could remove the conflict over the symbol and get to the real issues underneath, there would be a chance for real learning," Lash told WCVB, the local Boston ABC TV affiliate station.

For many students, the shocking election results and Trump presidency have changed their views on what the flag means.  

"If our president is Donald Trump, I don't think any school, especially this school, should really support his ideas by raising the flag," an unnamed student told WCVB.

But many veterans disagree, seeing the US flag as a permanent symbol of the nation that shouldn’t be honored – or discarded – based on who is currently in power.

"It's not about who won the election," Leo Deschenes, who served in the Coast Guard for 16 years, told MassLive during the protest. "It's about being able to have free elections and voice opinions or opposition and not be hauled off to jail or imprisoned forever or executed in the streets."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Hampshire College pulled down the American Flag
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/1128/Why-Hampshire-College-pulled-down-the-American-Flag
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe