LGBT college group wants gay pride flag in hall of international flags
File this story under “Gay Pride”:
A group of students and faculty at LaGuardia Community College (LGCC) are pushing administrators to add the LGBT rainbow flag to a hall on campus which houses international flags.
LGCC, a public school located on New York’s Long Island, is currently displaying the famous LGBT rainbow flag outside of the Hall of Flags in a glass display case, according to the New York Daily News.
A number of students and faculty, however, say the flag iconic rainbow flag ought to be housed along with the flags of sovereign countries.
Professor Richard Henry, in the education department, apparently started the campaign to demonstrate that the entire campus is a safe space for sexual minorities.
“Our mission statement is to help shape a rapidly and evolving society and I think that certainly a flag, the rainbow flag in the Hall of Flags is a symbol of that promotion of that ideal that we’re trying to live up to,” he told Campus Reform on Wednesday.
School spokesperson Randy Fader-Smith told Campus Reform in an email that no decision has so far been made on whether the flag will be moved but that a committee will be formed to make the decision.
“This decision will rest with a committee comprised of faculty, staff and students that will review this request when it convenes at the beginning of the school year,” said Randy Fader-Smith, associate director of public relations. “Whatever the committee decides, the College is absolutely committed to maintaining a safe, open and positive environment for all GLBT students, staff and faculty. “
Shane Windmeyer, the executive director of LGBT campus advocacy group Campus Pride, told Campus Reform that getting the flag hung in the hall would be something a reward for steadfast LGBT students.
“We could spend all of our days arguing that what I think it comes down to is that these students are trying to create a safe place on their campus and sadly these issues of trying to get a flag hanging in a hallway are just icing on the cake for these students,” he said.
“They need to know does your campus have LGBT friendly policies and practices and I would guess that this campus does not because they have not participated in our larger index,” he added.
LGBT college group fights to add the rainbow gay pride flag to hall of international flags (Campus Reform)
Comments
The idea of “safe” environments is a fundamentally toxic one.
Understand that by “safe” it is meant that you never have to encounter even implied disapproval or alternate ideas and it’s clear that this concept is contrary to the idea of university. We’d all prefer not to have our selves, our beliefs, or our opinions subject to hostility but in general terms the *idea* of university is that we are exposed to other ideas than our own and exposed to people other than those just like ourselves. “Safe” means this never happens. At least for those special few. The rest of us still are forced to deal with staff that is hostile to our religious faith but we simply hope it won’t affect grades, or staff that is hostile to our politics but we hope that it won’t affect grades, or staff that might view us as default rapists or oppressors because of our gender and race.
University isn’t supposed to shelter us from the fact that there are a number of opinions out there about politics or religion or right and wrong or accepted cultural and social norms with different standards of taboo behavior held by diverse people.
“Safe” means unchallenged, ever, for any reason, or even just as a figment of imagination, because the implied disapproval is unwelcome and makes a person feel “unsafe.”
Clearly the *absence* of a Gay Pride flag in an array of national flags makes NO ONE unsafe. It doesn’t even challenge or question GLBT orthodoxy by it’s absence. What else can we apply this standard of safety to? Logically, a fitness program will make the fat girls feel bad about themselves and thus feel unwelcome and unsafe… this is exactly the standard for “safe”. I’m not making it up or exaggerating. (See WisCon for examples of the extent that “safe” is imposed, in the real world, to include with all seriousness, fat shaming.)
“Safe” means (as was argued at my university, though they failed) that even seeing a Chic-fil-A bag carried by a student who has no animosity toward gays or maybe even is gay himself can make the poor GLBT student feel “unsafe” just by seeing the logo.
How insulting is that, to be treated as so profoundly mentally infirm over whatever your specialness might be that your entire life must be cotton padded and “made safe” for you?
Thing is, the call for “safe” places works. Once the Rainbow Flag is requested, simply by *being* requested, if it is rejected then that makes a place that wasn’t unsafe before newly unsafe… nevermind if every single other flag is a geopolitical nation state.
So… how about a different collection of advocacy flags in their own place? Well, the rainbow flag could be there and everyone else could have their flag there too… the Gadsden flag, the Christian flag… Oh… opps… those will make someone feel unsafe.