UC leaves out flag, anthem

Examiner ^ | 9/6/02 | NICK DRIVER

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

"The Star Spangled Banner" might be sung and Old Glory might be waved on the UC Berkeley campus during a remembrance ceremony on Sept. 11 -- just don't expect campus organizers to encourage that sort of thing.

"Flags promote nationalism," says Graduate Assembly president Jessica Quindel, one of the people responsible for picking student speakers for the main show at Sproul Plaza at noon. "We are steering away from singing the national anthem or handing out red, white and blue ribbons because they are political and exclusionary."

The decision to exclude the flag and anthem from the official remembrance program -- anyone can bring a flag or sing on their own, says Quindel -- has long-suffering Berkeley conservatives howling.

"If Quindel and her Marxist comrades are selecting the speakers, I think there are serious violations of fundamental fairness," Robb McFadden was quoted by the conservative campus paper California Patriot as saying.

"How can we expect freedom of speech to be filtered through such a radical political ideologue?" said McFadden, director of the California College Republicans.

But Quindel and other campus organizers say the conservative attacks are unfair, and that organizers simply want to make Wednesday's daylong tribute to the almost 3,000 who died in the terrorist attacks an international event, not an American one.

After all, she says, people from around the globe died Sept. 11.

Quindel said nobody was excluding anything, and that she would "totally support the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner.' "

Berkeley, the center of the 1960s free speech movement and anti-Vietnam protests, is often the butt of national derision for its political stances.

The city's fire chief ordered flags removed from fire engines last year, while the city council was virtually alone in urging the U.S. military out of Afghanistan.

Likewise, news of next week's officially flagless, anthemless ceremony drew the predictable national and local outrage.

Chancellor Robert Berdahl held a press conference Thursday night to clear up the "misinformation," while Quindel "had to deal with the right wing a lot today," she said.

"Not one of the many hate e-mails I got were from Berkeley, though," she said proudly.

[Attillathehon]

To the morons at Berkley. People from all over the world were indeed killed in the attacks of 9/11. However, THEY WERE NOT THE TARGET! The intention of the terrorists was to kill AMERICANS, not the visiting delegation from Nigeria. The attack was on AMERICAN soil, not European. The cost of rebuilding New York and the Pentagon will be shared by all AMERICANS, not the U.N. And the burden of eliminating the Taliban and fighting the war on terror will also fall on the shoulders of the AMERICAN taxpayer.

Yes, many people from other countries died that day and we should mourn their passing too. But Berkely is an AMERICAN university and it should fly the AMERICAN flag and sing the AMERICAN national anthem. Let the other nations mourn their losses in their own way. You, as an AMERICAN student, should pay homage to the thousands of AMERICANS murdered on September 11, 2001 and pray that AMERICAN military might will continue to keep you safe.

[colorado tanker]

Jessica, how does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?

[nravoter]

Excellent points!

[Savage Beast]

"Liberals" do not consider the United States to be worthy of defending or of surviving.

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[Plutarch]

Hmmm.... I don't recall that U.C. Berkeley had any problems receiving my taxes in a U.S. denomination.

You'd think they wouldn't want to pollute their hands with that nationalistic filthy lucre.

[Tadhg]

The City and the University have never considered themselves part of the United States.

[Bubba_Leroy]

"Not one of the many hate e-mails I got were from Berkeley, though," she said proudly.

That's because no one with a lick of sense would pay to send their kids there.

[Howlin]

Berkeley, the center of the 1960s free speech movement and anti-Vietnam protests, is often the butt of national derision ridicule for its political stances.