On Saturday the University of California at Irvine (UCI) said that the student government’s vote to ban the display of the American Flag was “misguided.”
“This misguided decision was not endorsed or supported in any way by the campus leadership, the University of California, or the broader student body,” according to the statement. “The views of a handful of students passing a resolution do not represent the opinions of the nearly 30,000 students on this campus and have no influence on the policies and practices of the university. The American flag is still proudly flying throughout our campus and will continue to do so.”
Breitbart News reported on Friday that the undergraduate governing body at the University voted to remove the American flag and all other flags from its lobby and referred to flags as “symbols of patriotism or weapons of nationalism.”
The statement also said:
The University holds the value of intellectual inquiry and the free and rigorous exchange of ideas as bedrock values of institutions of higher education. And yet, we are constantly reminded that those values we cherish are in part, guaranteed by the sacrifices made and the struggles waged to secure the freedom and democracy that the flag symbolizes. UCI never takes that for granted.