The flag’s removal follows a 33-15 vote with one abstention by student senate members and faculty last week.
Advertisement
That this institution in particular – one with deep ties to the region’s Confederate roots – has now taken down the state flag suggests that the action could resonate through Mississippi as it continues to assess its past. “But to others, the flag means that a few members of the Ole Miss family are not welcomed or valued”, Stocks said in a statement. A Change.org petition to keep the flag had nearly 1,800 signatures at noon on Monday. The white man charged in the slayings had posed with a Confederate battle flag in photos posted online before the massacre.
Stocks also said that he spoke with Jeff Vitter, who was recently named the “preferred candidate” for the university’s chancellorship, Monday morning about the state flag and that Vitter understood the administration’s reasoning for taking the flag down. Governor Phil Bryant has repeatedly stated he does not support such a move because he believes a majority of Mississippians would still vote it down (and as we all know, the “rightness” of things is always decided by popular vote).
While many other flags take inspiration from the Confederate flag, Mississippi’s is the only state flag that incorporates the Confederate emblem in its design.
The law Bryant cited makes displaying the flag optional, not mandatory, at public buildings.
Coon, who originally brought this resolution forward, stood in front of the flag pole that no longer holds the state flag and said he felt relief.
Initiative Measure No. 55 proposes to add the following language to the Mississippi Constitution: “The flag of the State of Mississippi shall not contain or include any reference to the Confederate army’s battle flag or to the Confederacy”.
But as my colleague Tyler Bishop pointed out last week, the most common defense of the Confederate flag-that it’s about “heritage, not hate”-doesnpt “recognize all the rich and varied aspects of Southern heritage that the flag fails to represent”. Sports teams remain the Rebels, but the Colonel Rebel mascot was retired, and fans mostly stopped waving Confederate battle flags after sticks were banned in the stadium.
He too is hoping this is just the start of progression on campus. Students and alumni alike lauded the university’s move on Monday.
Advertisement
The school isn’t the first in the state to take down the flag-three historically black colleges in Mississippi beat them to it. “I think it represents adequately our core values of who we want to be”.
