Following the mass shooting that occurred at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, this June, photographs of the suspect, Dylann Roof, waving a Confederate flag surfaced, supporting the idea that he was in fact a white-supremacist. The Confederate flag has since been removed from the Statehouse in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, but other states such as Louisiana refuse to remove Confederate monuments, citing their historical importance to the South.
“The Confederate flag was a flag used by military forces that fought in the defense of slavery,” assistant professor of history Shawn Fisher said. “The Klu Klux Klan (KKK) was founded after the Confederacy lost and used its flag as a symbol. There is no doubt of the historic origin of this flag and what its meaning was. If you’re saying that the flag isn’t about those things, you’re trying to revise history, and more importantly, you’re trying to say that this flag isn’t about the loss of blood, division, disunity, hate and lynchings.”
Senior Grayson Piershale said he believes the flag’s meaning has altered over time.
“In my opinion, this issue comes down to a misunderstanding of what symbols are and how they are not immutable to change,” Piershale said. “I think that it would be unreasonable to assume that every person that displays the Confederate flag is a racist because that’s just not true.”
Section 4 of the Harding University Student Handbook states: “The use of vulgarity, profanity and any offensive language or offensive symbols will not be tolerated.” The controversy has brought into question the University’s consideration of the Confederate flag as an “offensive symbol.”
“Even prior to this becoming a topic that was in the media, I have asked students to remove the Confederate flag from their window,” Dean of Students Zach Neal said. “We follow the expectations in the handbook, and those have been in place for years. If there is a possibility of offending someone, then we would want to be proactive.”
In addition, the men’s social club Chi Sigma Alpha will be changing its symbol because it is thought to closely resemble the Confederate flag.
“We aren’t trying to hide anything at all,” Luke Kays, senior president of Chi Sigma Alpha, said. “We’re just going to start fresh and design a new crest. We as a club are proud that we don’t stand for what we were originally founded on.”
Piershale said the issue lies with the symbol’s historically negative connotation.
“It’s okay to have your Southern pride but that shouldn’t be tied intrinsically to a particular symbol,” Piershale said. “I think it’s important to acknowledge and understand that for a lot of other people, this is a symbol that brings back a lot of memories of facing oppression, violence and potentially even worse.”
Neal said it is important to adhere to Scripture and reamin thoughtful of the flag’s potentially offensive effects on others.
“A greater topic I see is us being mindful of our community and being sensitive to what would make members of our community more at ease,” Neal said. “I think we’ve been proactive about using the precedence of Scripture, making sure that everyone is treated with respect.”
