Hundreds of decisions are made by collegiate student bodies every day around the country. Not all of these decisions are airtight, but they aren’t scrutinized because few expect young people to be perfect politicians.
One can only imagine how taken aback two representatives at the Associated Students of University of California at Irvine felt this weekend when their attempt to address the placement of a previously nonexistent American flag in the lobby space of the student government offices mutated into their nationwide condemnation as ideological traitors. Even more shocking is the UCI administration’s total acquiescence to the misguided media frenzy.
The context and timeline of events leading up to resolution R50-70 make it clear that neither representative campaigned for a systematic removal of American flags. The resolution is a “housekeeping issue … we don’t care about any other flags on campus,” said co-author Khaalidah Sidney, the ASUCI representative for the UCI School of Humanities. “(ASUCI President Reza Zomorrodian) is launching his political career out of this – the reaction is for personal gain.”
According to New University, the flag was first posted in the ASUCI lobby as “a decoration” by the member of the Office of Student Services, and was subject to several rounds of being removed and reposted by students and the executive office, respectively.
When the flag was reposted the third time with a note informing aggrieved parties to contact their legislators, students took the request seriously. Resolution authors Matthew Guevara and Sidney took action by responding to their constituents. Over the course of two months, numerous students “had concerns and felt afraid” about the flag, said Guevara, an ASUCI representative for the UCI School of Social Ecology.
After the resolution passed Thursday, Zomorrodian, representing the executive cabinet, swiftly condemned the legislature in a statement Friday.
“We will be having a conversation about this piece of legislation and deciding what course of action the cabinet will take collectively,” he wrote. The cabinet vetoed the legislation Saturday.
UCI administration then released a statement the same day in total concurrence with the cabinet, calling the resolution “misguided,” and according to reports, calling on the legislators who supported it to apologize.
The statements ignore the chronology in which the flag became an issue to students and obscures the fact that Zomorrodian offered no input to the legislative branch about the resolution until he released his statement. His decision to unilaterally issue a press release about an easy-to-misconstrue campus problem created the deleterious unintended consequence of vilifying Sidney, Guevara and the university.
The beleaguered authors assert that Zomorrodian’s flashy pledge of allegiance to the flag was self-aggrandizing and transformed the debate from campus squabble to a matter of patriotism. He has since commented on the issue in multiple publications, including a Fox News opinion piece where he waxes poetic about flag and country.
But the most deeply unsettling consequence of the legislation has been the administration’s heavy-handed and coercive response that compromises the independence of ASUCI, and the freedom of speech. UCI’s rapid support for the executive cabinet’s position in its Saturday statement and its failure to mention how the six legislators who supported R50-70 have been harassed suggests that the school is more concerned about public image than the protection of students.
The absurdity of the discussion reached its peak when politicians chimed in. State Senators Janet Nguyen and Pat Bates mulled introducing legislation to prohibit flag bans on all California public colleges and universities, again ignoring the quite trivial context in which the issue arose.
In choosing to accept the media narrative of the anti-American flag ban, all outraged parties have neglected to view this issue for what it is – petty politicking among formative student-politicians that happens to involve a cultural object that makes for an attractive emotional outrage story.
Sidney, Guevara, and four other legislators have received harassment, hate mail, and death threats for their imperfect resolution and as consequence of Zomorrodian’s political maneuvering. But UCI is acting even more poorly by shrugging its shoulders and persuading its students to agree with the administration in a vain effort to recover its reputation.
The totality of the situation harkens to Cold War McCarthyism. And that is truly un-American.
As bad as it seems, UCI -and UC in general- has more to lose in this situation than the student legislators, therefore it’s not surprising the reaction administrators have to this incident. The fact that there’s this type of reaction from the public and state legislature (and it is certain that the university was threatened with withholding of donations, etc.), demonstrates that campuses are not a microcosm of our larger society. The UCLA administration was correct when commenting on the recent incident involving the judicial board, stating that campus student leaders are learning a valuable lesson in the realities of their decision-making.
From the LA Times “Janina Montero, UCLA’s vice chancellor for student affairs, said in an interview Friday that students were learning “difficult and painful” lessons about how to coexist “in a multiethnic, multicultural society and learning very directly what kind of sensitivities there are and what respect for people means in practice.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-allegations-of-anti-israel-sentiments-rock-uc-campuses–20150307-story.html
“Sidney, Guevara, and four other legislators have received harassment, hate mail, and death threats for their imperfect resolution and as consequence of Zomorrodian’s political maneuvering.” Good.
The Irving Six should be deported to a country that does not fly the American Flag.
Imperfect resolution!? Are you futzing with us? The authors of this stupid resolution said they banned the US flag said because “Free speech can be interpreted as hate speech” among a laundry list of other rambling and ridiculous “whereins” and wherases” of how the flag is the most offensive symbol on earth. These fools got the responses they deserve. That Mr. Zomorrodian comes out the hero in all this is entirely due to his gracious response to these ill mannered would be flag banners, or the Idiot 6 as they should be called. What a cry baby defense this article is for a bunch of sore losers. Seriously, Cold War McCarthyism, that’s what you came up with. Go back to class and learn something.
Of course it is unacceptable that any student receive death or other threats and those issues should be dealt with seriously. However, you are being very disingenuous by trying to characterize this as a minor “housekeeping item.” When members of a student government vote to ban the American flag from a public space it is a big deal. Many students at UCI and other colleges as well as alumni are veterans or have family who are and while they would certainly defend the free speech rights of those who might wish to disparage the flag or treat it with disrespect, it doesn’t make the exercise of such speech any less noxious or deserving of criticism. Moreover many other students have very strong positive feelings about the flag and this country and are legitimately offended when it is treated as an object of scorn. Free speech is a two way street. If you publicly support a position or resolution you open yourself to public criticism of your position and the questioning of your motivations. And when you take public actions that have the tendency to reflect negatively on your University, you should expect the University to take a position on your actions.
And lets be honest, banning the flag from a so called “inclusive space” because some students might be offended by its symbolic value is ridiculous. Essentially it just creates a space where the most easily offended get to dominate and tyrannize their fellow students. If you have to conform your beliefs and appearance to those held by the most easily offended person in the room, you are being excluded, not included. Take it to its logical conclusion. I am sure there are students who are offended by women wearing hijabs, women not wearing hijabs, students wearing cross or star of David necklaces, students wearing politically themed t-shirts, ROTC uniforms, etc. Whose sensitivities are we going to respect in the so called “inclusive space?”
You’re correct to point out that this is a slippery slope. Students are taking what they learn in the classroom to heart and it’s apparent that they’re not yet capable of handling the decision-making or consequences of their actions. Students need to step out of their theoretical, textbook thought process and add real world experience before becoming fervent “activists” . The results of this immaturity and inexperience are all the missteps by student leaders across UC. Many have yet to experience life where they are not taken care of and have their hands held in the protected bubble of academia. Most, if not all, careers/job are not so accommodating to “sensitivities” so they’re all in for a wake up call. Better now than later.
What do you expect? They are college children after all.
This article is a misrepresentation of what happened. At least it downplays items that don’t fit it’s narrative. As others have said this wasn’t a minor housekeeping issue. In the New University article it is a little more clear. A student put up a flag and other students kept taking it down, anonymously. The student kept putting it back up and told them to bring it up to their legislators. In essence they couldn’t stop the student from displaying the flag, so they escalated the argument to an unreasonable level. Trying to get a resolution, because you couldn’t stop someone from doing something perfectly reasonable that you didn’t like was excessive.
Was it anti-American? Well read the resolution and the answer to that is yes. The media didn’t create that narrative the resolution itself did. Was it un-American? The answer to that is no. Criticizing the government is perfectly acceptable and there are some valid criticisms in their, but mostly it is a rambling mess.
Do they deserve threats of violence or racial insults? No, of course not. That is not acceptable in our society and is absolutely wrong. Do they deserve to be criticized? Oh yeah they do. Welcome to politics. Their actions are no different than any other politician who says or does something absurd, and who rightfully get a political backlash. It is no surprise at all that the university didn’t support them. Why would they? It was a bad idea to introduce the legislation in the first place and actually probably had a net negative effect on the Dreamer generation. All it did was enforce negative stereotypes that right wingers have about them. That they hate America and all the other absurd anti-immigrant narratives. “Remember that Dreamer group that tried to ban the US flag because they couldn’t stand the sight of it?”
McCarthyism? McCarthyism was a witch hunt. This isn’t a witch hunt. This was a short sighted attempt to solve a personal dispute between students that escalated farther than it should have. It was silly, they apologized and now it’s time to move on. One thing is for sure. There will be a lot more American flags on campus after this fracas. Epic politics fail.
Poor journalism…this clearly was not a “housekeeping issue”, as the narrative surrounding the very few that supported the resolution invoked ideas such as “nationalism, “colonialism”, racism”, and “xenophobia”. The college professors who supported the student council submitted similar ludicrous comments and assertions. This was patently, and categorically, political. Seriously, who are your editors? Either you completely lack research ability and reading comprehension, or you are just a shill for leftist academia, it has to be one of those, so which is it? What a joke, and this is unfortunately about where modern journalism sits today. Even for a college paper, really lazy, and I suspect willfully incorrect, reporting.
Eventually all progressives become fascists. They cannot help it. it’s in their nature.
“Sidney, Guevara, and four other legislators have received harassment, hate mail, and death threats”….and they deserve all of it. The brats feed off American money, whine about the nation educating them, then insult it. I say exile is appropriate. Drop kick each of these underserving punks onto the Aleutians. See how long they complain about “American imperialism ” when there’s no Whole Foods around.
This is a joke right?
I understand you progressive college kids think about everything in terms of feelings…
…Unfortunately the feeling should be along the lines of: People died for you fools to be able to spew such rhetoric, including this article with an explanation apparently conceived by a 12 year old.
The premise of your article is almost as much of a joke as the attempt by these liberal progressive ‘children’ to remove the very thing that allows their ignorance to exist.
What a display of profound ignorance, and on so many levels.