Last year, the Sigma Chi fraternity was told by an unidentified university administrator to remove their American flag as it could be viewed as “intimidating, aggressive or alienating.”
While on probation in the fall of 2017, Stanford University’s Sigma Chi was trying to improve their image and get off probation, according to the Stanford Review.
They invited the unidentified administrator, who was assigned to serve as a liaison between Residential Education and Sigma Chi, to dinner at the frat house for a discussion.
During the dinner it was suggested that Sigma Chi remove the American flag flown outside the house, referring to it as a discomforting symbol. The unidentified administrator advised Sigma Chi to reflect on the message of the flag’s image that they had chosen to fly.
Stanford Fraternity Told to Take American Flag Down to ‘Improve Image’https://t.co/UeTNbYFFUm pic.twitter.com/UUoyhzlbao
— Breitbart Tech (@BreitbartTech) December 3, 2018
Then the administrator recommended that if Sigma Chi wanted to change the stereotypes that inundated the fraternity and the house, they should get rid of the American flag. This would be a way to rebrand the house because the flying of the flag “tainted Sigma Chi’s reputation and, presumably, worsened its chance of survival,” the administrator told them.
Appalled, Sigma Chi responded by “instead choosing to replace it with an even bigger one,” The Washington Examiner reported.
The previous flag was placed in a frame and displayed in the house.
The administrator took this as a “silent but visible protest.”
The fraternity was closed in May, following the university contending that there were accountability problems with the chapter.
The move by Sigma Chi is seen by many as a refreshing sign of hope after a new survey reported just last week said, “Younger Americans are turning on the country and forgetting its ideals, with nearly half believing that it isn’t “great” and many eyeing the U.S. flag as “a sign of intolerance and hatred.”
The poll also revealed that in the age group of 38 and younger, four in 10 think it’s acceptable to burn the flag.
One in eight don’t want to see the flag at all, and two in five don’t believe the flag should be saluted.
The survey analysis said, “Younger Americans (under 38 – Gen Z and Millennials) are becoming unmoored from the institutions, knowledge, and spirit traditionally associated with American patriotism.”
Nick Adams, founder of FLAG said, “We suspected that we would find decreasing numbers of Americans well-versed in our nation’s most important principles and young people less patriotic than the generations that came before, but we were totally unprepared for what our national survey reveals: an epidemic of anti-Americanism.”
