Posted on 10/01/2001 4:06:24 PM PDT by Lecie
Flag display causes ruckus at Holy Cross
Monday, October 01, 2001
By Emilie Astell
Worcester (Mass) Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER-- Margaret Post took an American flag to work three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to mourn the death of Todd Beamer, a close personal friend who was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked jet crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
She did not realize, she said Thursday, that by hanging the flag in a second-floor hallway of Beavens Hall at the College of the Holy Cross she would cause a commotion. Instead of allowing the flag to remain in place, Royce Singleton, chairman of the college's Sociology Department, asked Mrs. Post, a secretary in the department, to take it down.
She refused.
He took it down, folded it and placed the flag on her desk, she said.
“I was doing a very patriotic thing on a national day of mourning,” she said. Her only intention, she added, was to mourn the death of a friend and honor his memory.
Mrs. Post's husband, Robert, worked with Mr. Beamer at Oracle Corp. Mrs. Post and Lisa Beamer had accompanied their husbands on a business trip to Europe and returned home on Sept. 10.
Todd Beamer is believed to have been one of the passengers who tried to stop the hijackers. He called his wife on a cellphone minutes before the plane crashed, telling her that he and others planned to overpower the terrorists.
Mrs. Beamer was honored Sept. 20 at the Capitol during President Bush's address to the nation and received a standing ovation when she was introduced by the president.
Mr. Singleton acknowledged in an interview Thursday afternoon that he had taken the flag down, but declined to explain his reasons, saying that there was “nothing to discuss with anyone outside the college.”
“I don't want to get into why it happened,” he said. “It was a decision I very much regret having made for many reasons.”
Mrs. Post said she explained to Mr. Singleton that she was mourning a friend, but he told her that displaying the flag would make some students uncomfortable. After the incident, she received a letter from Mr. Singleton in which he expressed remorse, she said.
Mr. Singleton denied Thursday night that he said anything about students to Mrs. Post.
“There is nothing that I can say that will make anybody understand the social context in which this occurred,” he said.
There was still lingering shock, anxiety and anger that Friday, he said. Seeing the flag in the hallway upset him, he added, and “stirred certain emotions in me.” He did not elaborate on what kinds of emotions he experienced.
Two other professors in the department, whom Mrs. Post declined to identify, agreed with Mr. Singleton that the flag should be removed, she said.
The incident upset Mrs. Post and prompted her to leave the campus before lunchtime that Friday, Sept. 14. She returned to work the following Wednesday.
“I started the day in honor and left in embarrassment and tears,” the Auburn resident said. “I'm a very patriotic person. I fly an American flag outside my home every day with a light on it.”
When she returned to work, Mrs. Post met with Mr. Singleton and Stephen C. Ainlay, dean of the college. An agreement was reached allowing Mrs. Post to display a flag in her office. She now has a small flag on top of her desk.
Holy Cross spokeswoman Katherine B. McNamara called the incident a “knee-jerk reaction” on the part of Mr. Singleton and one that does not characterize the college.
“The campus is filled with American flags,” she said Thursday night. “Holy Cross stands for academic freedom.”
As news of the incident spread through Beavens Hall, Mrs. Post said, an employee in the psychology department, which is on the third floor of the building, retrieved the flag that had been taken down. The flag was then displayed in the third-floor hallway, with no objections.
An employee at Holy Cross for eight years, Mrs. Post said she still enjoys working there, although it has been stressful since the incident.
“I know the professors in the department had a different interpretation of the flag than I have,” she said, “but it's not every day a secretary stands up to professors.”
OK who has the E-mail and Snail Maill addresses?
Ditto!
... Mr. Singleton acknowledged ... he had taken the flag down,...
Any bets the jerk doesn't know how to properly fold the flag?
Mr. Singleton,
President Bush honored this American hero by inviting his wife, Lisa, to the White House and to a joint session of Congress for his speech last week. Todd Beamer is an American hero.
How dare you not allow Mrs. Post to articulate her rights of free speech by displaying a large American Flag outside her window? Get with the program, Mr. Singleton......support America wholeheatedly!
In the words of George W. Bush. "Either you are with us or you are for the terrorists."
Mr. Singleton, I truly doubt that you are with the terrorists, so please allow Mrs. Post to display her flag in memory of Todd Beamer thus allowing her to practice her right to free speech.
Karen
Salem, OR
Dear Mr. Singleton, As a Holy Cross graduate, I am disgusted to hear that the rampant disrespect for this great country has reached my school. Any students who would be offended by the flag of this, the greatest of all countries, do not deserve the precious gift of freedom. Leave our flag alone! If you or any students are offended by what it stands for, exercise your own right of freedom and leave for greener pastures. Might I suggest Afghanistan, Iraq or even Cuba ( I hear the weather is beautiful there.)
There they go again with that p.c. mantra, "feel uncomfortable."
There is no sin or evil in their silly liberal world, just things that make people "uncomfortable." (And those things are invariably things held dear by traditionalists -- flag, country, marriage, church, family).
Conversely, to "feel comfortable" with something makes that something OK. I.e., two gay men raising daughters is fine if the daughters "feel comfortable" with it.
Holy Cross is a disgrace for having a clown like this Royce Singleton as a member of their faculty. I hope this news gets out to all the alumni and I hope they speak with their wallets and say, "No more support until you dump this foul Singleton out in the street."
This is where Singleton calls the secretary a liar.
Who do you believe - - the secretary who just wanted to display the American flag, or the disgusting mouse who took it down?
I was thinking more along the lines of Kabul!
I hope you copied the school's President and added that you will no longer give any financial support until Singleton has left the school. Nothing talks like money, especially to these comfortable Marxist scumbags who are so intent on redistributing everybody else's money.
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