The University of Mississippi took down the Mississippi state flag on Monday following a campus-wide outcry to remove it because it includes a small Confederate Battle Flag in the top left corner.
Ole Miss Police Department officers lowered the banner during a morning ceremony at the university’s Lyceum Circle. It will be kept in the University Archives.
“The University of Mississippi community came to the realization years ago that the Confederate battle flag did not represent many of our core values, such as civility and respect for others,” said Interim Chancellor Morris Stocks in a statement. “Since that time, we have become a stronger and better university. We join other leaders in our state who are calling for a change in the state flag.”
More than 200 people attended an Oct. 16 campus rally against the flag. On Oct. 20, the Student Senate voted 33-15-1 to take the banner down. The Faculty Senate, the Graduate Student Council and the Staff Council soon joined in.
A surge in calls demanding the flag’s ouster began last June when a man went on a racially-motivated shooting spree in a historically black church in South Carolina. Photos were subsequently discovered of the shooter posing with a Confederate flag.
“Mississippi and its people are known far and wide for hospitality and a warm and welcoming culture. But our state flag does not communicate those values,” Stocks added. “Our state needs a flag that speaks to who we are. It should represent the wonderful attributes about our state that unite us, not those that still divide us.”
Ole Miss is not the first university to push back against Confederate symbols, following shooting in South Carolina. In August, the University of Texas at Austin opted to remove an outdoor statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America to be re-purposed as part of a “new educational exhibit,” according to university officials.
States and local governments have recently dismissed the Civil War era symbols. The governors of South Carolina and Alabama removed Confederate Flags from state grounds. Meanwhile the Mississippi state government has resisted reacting to the controversy.
Businesses have also played a part in banning any references to the Confederacy from their inventories. Walmart, Amazon, e-Bay and Sears, among others banned the sale Confederate merchandise.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton chimed in on the flag’s removal Monday evening via Twitter, applauding the university for a job “well done”:
Well done, Ole Miss. Symbols of hate have no business flying over a place of learning. -H https://t.co/t3WL4pJcjV
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 26, 2015
