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Before Election Day, the goings-on at tiny Hampshire College, a very liberal arts institution nestled in Amherst, Massachusetts, didn’t mean all that much to most Americans. They were quick to learn.
After the small college lowered the flag to half-staff on Nov. 9 due to Donald Trump’s victory, Old Glory was burned and later banned from the campus. According to The Washington Post, college president Jonathan Lash said the ban was to “enable discussion” and “focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”
The flag was soon raised again at Hampshire because of widespread protests over its removal, but the insult to the Stars and Stripes has certainly started a lot of discussions — including a very important one on Capitol Hill.
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A number of congressional Republicans are now seriously talking about stripping federal funds from colleges and universities that pull a similar flag-shaming stunt.
Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, is introducing legislation Friday that would punish an institution like Hampshire College in the event that further flag-banning hysteria animates campus liberals and their cohorts in school administration.
According to the Washington Examiner, Rep. Turner’s bill is called the “Protect the Flag Act.” It reads, “Federal funds may not be made available to an institution of higher education … that, pursuant to an official policy of the institution to prohibit the display of the flag of the United States by the institution, removes, censors, takes down, prohibits, or otherwise halts display of a flag of the United States.”
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Hampshire College reversed its flag ban on Dec. 2, and Old Glory is now flying above the resentful little snowflakes on campus. However, congressman Turner and the 52 other Republicans currently sponsoring the bill want to make sure its the last campus to ban the symbol of our nation without serious financial consequences.
“I am proud to introduce legislation that will protect the American flag from censorship across the country,” Turner said in a statement.
“The American flag is a symbol of freedom throughout the world and should be respected as such. Recent action by Hampshire College to remove the American flag from its campus was a blatant act of censorship. Furthermore, Hampshire College’s decision disrespected our service members, veterans, and the liberties our flag embodies. We must work to ensure that such acts of censorship are not supported by the government in the future.”
The bill certainly brings up thorny constitutional issues, since a private institution would be able, under the First Amendment, to make its own decisions regarding the flag. However, there’s no constitutional right to federal funds, even if they have increasingly been the lifeblood of academia for decades now. On that basis, the Protect the Flag Act could still be constitutional, although it would certainly be heavily litigated were it to be enacted into law.
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However, Rep. Turner’s action does point out the amazing hypocrisy on America’s campuses. Not since the 1960s has America and its ideals been so profoundly assailed at our nation’s institutions of higher learning. In fact, the new crop of soi-disant radicals may even hold more contempt for the nation that helps educate them (and most of them call home) than their beatnik predecessors. The administrations are hardly any different, making accommodations for most any radical cause while stifling conservative speech on campuses.
The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, according to Campus Reform. It stands little chance of passing this term, as Congress is only working for the rest of this week and then going home for the year; most of the week is expected to be taken up with keeping the government funded. Next year, however, the Protect the Flag Act would seem to have a better chance of passing.
It will also have — for the first time in at least eight years — a president who has indicated he might enthusiastically sign it.
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