Does the American Flag Offend You? Stanford Thinks It Might

TLDR: An administrator encouraged Sigma Chi to take down the American flag flown in front of its house in order to improve its image on campus.

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In protest of Mr. Z’s suggestion, the house declined to remove the flag, instead choosing to replace it with an even bigger one. Some members, of course, abstained from the discussion about and decision to purchase a bigger flag. The following day, by Lozano’s doing, Sigma Chi upgraded from a three-by-five-foot flag to a four-by-six-foot flag. The former flag was then framed and placed on display inside the house. This decision was, in Lozano’s words, a “silent but visible protest” against the classification of the American flag as a potentially stigmatizing symbol by a member of the Stanford administration.

Having laid out Lozano’s narrative of this incident, I will now offer my own commentary.

This series of events, known to few, is concerning on multiple levels. One can imagine a justification for opposing a foreign flag being flown on one’s own soil, though I believe that such a condemnation would be ultra-nationalist and antagonistic. One could also reasonably consider the display of an authoritarian regime’s flag to be insulting and hostile – be it a flag representing **** Germany, The Confederacy, or Apartheid South Africa. One can likewise anticipate the classification of a sectarian flag as illegal – be it that of Catalonian or Chechen separatists. However, there is no reason why hoisting the American flag, on American soil, at an American institution, is offensive.

Every individual – American or not – has a right to take issue with any and all policies and actions that the U.S. government takes. I am not discouraging criticism of, protest against, or opposition to U.S. government policies. In fact, I encourage such scrutiny. To classify the American flag on American soil as offensive or jingoistic, however, is an entirely separate phenomenon which implies the condemnation of the United States at large.

There is an evident aversion amongst private institutions in the Bay Area to affiliate or partner with the American government. Be it Google employees protesting collaboration with the military on AI development, the absence of the national anthem at Stanford’s 2018 graduation ceremony, the elimination of the American flag from student organization logos, or Stanford’s framing itself as a global rather than American institution, the pattern is clear. Affiliation or partnership with the U.S. government is neither popular nor sexy. Patriotism in the Bay is not praised; indeed, at this rate of pariah-hood, it may soon perish.

However, the presently taboo nature of national pride is shortsighted. The distinction between our timeless political institutions (and their hallowed symbols) and the country’s leaders and policies at any given moment in history is elementary but crucial. Condemnations of patriotism fail to recognize that the United States’ institutions have and will continue to outlive unpopular leaders. This fact alone is cause for significant national pride. The vilification of our nation and its symbols is damning for the social fabric of American society. The current political climate has destroyed the last remnants of civic unity and patriotism.

But enough with the ominous platitudes. Next time you hear someone degrade a symbol of the United States – whether in the form of a flag, the Constitution, or the national anthem – you can defend the principles of this nation through oration or just go out and, like Sigma Chi, buy a bigger one.