On Sept. 10, right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University.
All U.S. departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the U.S. must lower the American flag to half-staff on Sept. 11, according to Public Law 107-89, the “Patriot Day” Law.
After Sept. 11, however, the flags were to be kept at half-staff until sunset on Sept. 14, in accordance with a proclamation from President Trump following the assassination.
“It wasn’t until late on Friday [Sept. 12] that I passed by and noticed that the Pride flag specifically had been put at half-staff,” said senior Willem Cornish.
By law, no flag can fly higher than the U.S. flag, according to Title 4, Section 7 of the U.S. Flag Code. The Davis Center programmatic flag is managed by SGA, while the American and Vermont flags are managed by the University.
“The Prism Center requested for the [Pride] flag to be flying during that time frame,” said Lina Balcom, UVM director of Student Life and SGA’s faculty advisor. “And that flag happened to be flying when the government required us to put flags at half-staff.”
After noticing the Pride flag at half-staff along with the U.S. and state flags, Cornish went to the Davis Center and requested that the Pride flag be taken down. Cornish felt especially impacted by this issue as an LGBTQ+ student, he said.
“This was a man who advocated to an audience of millions that the LGBTQ+ community was something that had to be fought against,” Cornish said. “Just the decision to put the flag representing our community at half-staff for him was completely and utterly tone deaf.”
The decision to keep the Pride flag up at half-staff came out of an attempt to respect the Prism Center’s initial request to fly the flag, Balcom said.
When Cornish brought their concerns to the Davis Center, Balcom spoke to SGA and the Prism Center about the flag, leading to a group consensus that the flag was to be taken down and replaced with the SGA flag within the day, Balcom said.
“I don’t think that there was any intent behind it … I don’t think that this is the fault of any one individual,” Cornish said.
The presence of a flag on the programmatic pole is dependent on if SGA receives a pole request from a campus group. The Prism Center has not yet made a new request, stated junior SGA president Kennedy Connors.
