‘Ole Miss’ removes flag with Confederate emblem

Campbell and Dennison – who are not students – protested as the faculty senate adopted a student-sponsored resolution asking university administrators to remove the state flag because it has the Confederate battle emblem that critics see as a symbol of racial oppression.

Interim Chancellor Morris Stocks waited until after the brief ceremony was over to announce that he had ordered the flag lowered and sent to the university’s archives.

While South Carolina, the site of the terrorist attack, voted to remove the flag from state grounds, Mississippi is still stubbornly hanging on to it’s stage flag. The senate ultimately voted in favor of removing the flag 33-15. A group of university leaders then met Sunday night and agreed to take it down.

Other users pointed to the fact that Clinton’s husband, former President and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, signed a bill into law while he was governor “to commemorate the Confederate States of America” with the blue star that appears on that state’s flag. This version was flown by various Confederate Army units, including the biggest, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

Stocks says he was trying to end campus contention, not shield Vitter from a hard decision. State voters decided in 2001 to keep it there, the last state flag in the nation to incorporate the divisive symbol.

Today’s students forced the flag issue as the governor and most state lawmakers seek re-election on November 3, and many politicians have avoided staking positions.

The flag was removed from campus early Monday.

Ole Miss took down the Mississippi state flag from campus without much fanfare Monday morning before many students were even awake. Residents chose to keep the flag during a 2001 statewide vote. I believe publicly funded institutions should respect the law as it is written today. While (the flag) means a lot of positive things for a lot of people, it also brings up a few hurt feelings for a few too and I just think it’s time that we all move forward together. That’s because the flag contains the Confederate battle flag in its design.

When white supremacist Dylann Roof shot nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., he hoped it would inspire a race war. Police called it a racially motivated attack by a white man who had posed with Confederate flags. Sports teams are still called the Rebels, but the university several years ago retired the Colonel Rebel mascot – a white-haired old man a few thought resembled a plantation owner.

“As Mississippi’s flagship university, we have a deep love and respect for our state”, said Stocks in a statement.