Update, June 3, 11 a.m.:

In response to the administration’s decision to fly only the American flag, a group of students independently hoisted a pride flag on the Blaine Courtyard flagpole on the morning of June 3.

Update, June 1, 6 p.m.: This story has been updated to include an email sent to the community on June 1.

A tradition of raising a pride flag on the flagpole in Blaine Courtyard for Pride Month in June will not continue this year, as University of Chicago administrators determined that the flag qualifies as institutional expression and conflicts with the university’s articulated stance of institutional neutrality. 

The news upset dozens of members of the community, who posted negative reactions on social media.

On June 1, a few days after, Interim Director Ethan Bueno de Mesquita sent a message to the community that stated the decision only applies to the flagpole, rather than other places for expression.

He wrote, “To be clear, the full membership of LGBTQ+ people in the Lab community is not a contested issue. It is a core value.”

The pride flag was first mentioned to Dr. Bueno de Mesquita by Lab leadership during conversations about institutional neutrality, he said in an interview with the Midway. Administrators wanted to know if the flag was in alignment with the Kalven Report, university’s policy that requires institutional neutrality to guarantee student expression, and Lab’s new policy on viewpoint-neutral teaching of contested issues. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita determined that anything on a flag pole except the American flag — and possibly the Chicago or Illinois flags — is considered institutional speech, rather than student or faculty speech.

“I think the idea of a student organization saying ‘We should fly the pride flag for Pride Month’ in some way is student speech and should be totally acceptable,” Dr. Bueno de Mesquita said. “I think the university saying that an observer who sees something flying from a flagpole and understands that to be a statement of the institution is a reasonable interpretation of how flagpoles operate, and so that doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable rule.”

The pride flag was first raised in Lab’s courtyard in June 2022 after a group of lower school students felt their identities weren’t being represented. They created a petition that received hundreds of signatures and was later approved by then-Director of Schools Tori Jueds.

Lily Vogel, now a U-High ninth grader, was one of the two students who initially created the petition. She is frustrated because the flag was meant to make students feel included rather than serving as a political statement. 

“Flying a pride flag is not saying, like, ‘Oh, I’m against a certain group of people.’ It’s just saying ‘Wow, we support this group of people.’ And I think obviously there are people who maybe feel strongly about it and maybe they’re against that and they can be like that,” Lily said, “but it also means that we shouldn’t not be inclusive just because some people don’t want it.” 

In keeping with institutional neutrality, the university avoids all signs, symbols and slogans that are politicized and could be interpreted as a stance on policy, even if they are also symbols of inclusivity. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita is proposing alternative ways for students to express their opinions, like bulletin boards.

“Just some forum where students can have their voices heard would be my preference,” Dr. Bueno de Mesquita said. “We just have to figure out the logistics of that.”