Push to drop flag continues at Ole Miss
Faculty Senate to hold emergency meeting today
The University of Mississippi, an Old South icon that has struggled in recent years to distance itself from Confederate symbols of the past, is moving cautiously in a new battle over the state flag and will take no immediate action on lowering it.
Student leaders of the push to abandon the flag say, however, they will keep the pressure on and hope an emergency meeting of the faculty Senate Thursday means action will come quickly.
Ole Miss officials Wednesday commended the Associated Student Body for “using the democratic process” in voting Tuesday evening to ask for removal of the flag, which incorporates the Confederate battle flag and flies over the Oxford campus. The university did not commit to doing anything right away.
“As part of the university’s shared governance model, input will be welcomed from the graduate student council, the faculty Senate and the staff council concerning the issue voted on by the ASB (Tuesday) night,” a university statement said. “The University will consider input from all these constituents before deciding how it will move forward.”
The statement added: “As the flagship university for the state of Mississippi, we are proud that our students are taking the lead in addressing the need to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment throughout the state we love.”
Allen Coon, the student senator who wrote the resolution calling for the flag’s removal, said Wednesday that in light of the faculty Senate’s meeting Thursday to discuss the issue, he’s hopeful the university will be pushed to some final action at least within the next couple of weeks.
If the university does indeed
decide to stop flying the flag, as a number of cities and universities in the state already have, Coon said he thinks it would send a particularly strong statement coming from the school that made history with the James Meredith integration.
“I certainly hope it would send a strong statement,” said Coon, a sophomore from Petal, Mississippi, who is white. “We have a complicated past on social justice, but with student leaders calling for this I hope it will send a clear message to legislators in Jackson that we want change.”
Student body President Rod Bridges, of Madison, Mississippi, added in a statement that removing the flag goes beyond what is best for Ole Miss.
“This issue is not simply a university issue. It’s not a white issue or a black issue, either,” said Bridges, who is also white. “This is a human issue, and we have a symbol that instills fear and insecurity into individuals on this campus and in this community.”
State leaders have been reluctant to call for replacement of the flag without a vote. Voters overwhelmingly chose in 2001 to keep the current flag that the state has had since 1894.
Still, in the groundswell of opposition to Confederate symbols since the June slayings of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church by an avowed white supremacist, several Mississippi cities and counties, including Oxford, have stopped flying the state flag. Also, the state’s three historically black universities no longer fly it and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone African-American in Mississippi’s congressional delegation, does not display it in his offices.
On the Ole Miss campus, a rally opposing the flag last Friday drew about 200 protesters along with some in support of the flag.
This isn’t the first time the university has dealt with the sticky issue of Old South imagery considered offensive by many today. Former Chancellor Dan Jones took heat for his efforts over the past few years to rid the school of the Colonel Reb mascot, though athletic teams continue to carry the Rebels nickname.
The enrollment of the Oxford campus is about 14 percent African-American, while the state’s population is about 38 percent African-American.