On Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 3:30 in the morning, after the election of Donald Trump was announced on CNN, a few students pulled fire alarms in all the Hampshire College dorm buildings at the same moment.
Students were forced to gather on the quad after hearing the news of the election results, which for most was devastating, shocking, and, in many cases, terrifying. Some people were crying so hard that they couldn’t stand up.
One voice began to shout above them all “I am an undocumented immigrant and Donald Trump was just elected president of the United States.”
I noticed the person speaking was a dear friend. He had knocked on my door an hour before to tell me that we had lost the election. My friend spoke spontaneously, giving voice to the feelings of everyone in the crowd.
For the first time, I felt as if the safety of the world around me was compromised. I felt this way even as a middle-class white male, the demographic most responsible for electing Donald Trump and the demographic with the least to lose. I realized I was standing among people who truly and rightfully feared for their futures.
This fear transformed into anger and hate, a phenomenon that we find all too familiar. In the early morning of Friday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, a small group of students went to the flagpole, pulled down the U.S. flag, and lit it on fire. Their argument was that the U.S. flag no longer represented them, and furthermore, it represents institutionalized racism and oppression.
Meanwhile, a larger but still small group petitioned the school’s president and board of trustees to remove the flag from Hampshire College. The school’s administration responded by doing just that. President Jonathan Lash said in his letter to the campus: “We hope this (removing the flag) will enable us to instead focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”
President Lash is a bright and pragmatic president of Hampshire College and has served the student body extremely well, but in this case I believe his decision is misguided.
In truth, the American flag has flown over some of the darkest times in the history of our country. During the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the flag flew while thousands of Native Americans were displaced and murdered. The flag flew when the country held slaves and while the country mandated separate water fountains in public buildings.
More recently, the flag flies as police jail and murder a disproportionate percentage of young black men and women. But it also flew over the Union in the Civil War, and alongside Martin Luther King Jr. when he delivered his address from the Lincoln Memorial, and beside President Barack Obama as he was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.
The flag flies today at the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center and in the offices of countless other organizations fighting for racial justice. The flag can by no means be described as a symbol of hate or racism. It is, like all other flags, a symbol of the country and the country alone, past, present and future. This is where the problem of taking the flag down arises.
The flag being burned by the students and then taken down by the administration was a direct result of anger and fear following the presidential election. There are mixed feelings everywhere on campus, with passion on both sides of the issue and a lot of people in the middle.
But removing the flag does not send the message that Hampshire College wants to end racist, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric, as the school and its administration would want. It instead sends an unintended message that the student body and the administration would rather withdraw from the United States of America under its new leadership than be an active part of the solution.
This decision is antithetical to the mission of Hampshire College. We do not exist to be insulated. We are a breeding ground for new and progressive ideas about social justice, environmental justice and education. Not only is the decision to remove the flag a substantial misstep for a college determined to attract new students, but it sends a message that the administration will consider only the loudest and most radical portions of the school’s population.
Hampshire College prides itself on taking bold and progressive stances on issues, being ahead of the curve and pushing its students to embody that spirit. Many students are opposed to these actions. In fact, recently many of my peers and their families have been expressing fear for students’ safety, as threats continue to be directed at the college. Beyond that there is widespread concern regarding discrimination against Hampshire students as they graduate and join the workforce. The administration made a unilateral decision based on the demands of a small group of students that is impacting everyone on campus. They have since neglected to take a strong stand on either side of the issue. Had the issue been put to an all community vote, as it should have been, I am confident that the flag would remain flying.
But no matter the feelings of a small group of students, Hampshire College is indeed a part of the United States of America. We know for sure that we are part of the solution, and when we graduate we will change our country for the better. If you have any doubt, ask anyone who stood in the quad on Nov. 9 at 3:30 in the morning, in community and in solidarity.
Samuel Shaffery, of Long Island, New York, is a first-year student at Hampshire College who is studying environmental justice and sustainability.