Is Aquinas an ally?

By Anastasia Benstead, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

On Sept. 26 the head of creative dining services was alerted to a small pride stick flag affixed to the register in the Moose. Roughly a week later it was removed.

While this may feel like a small act, it had a deep impact on the students of aquinas. Many even reported feeling scared. “It’s not as though there is a lot of queer representation on campus anyway, the Moose should definitely be a safe space,” Camille Bistrek said, president of AQ Pride. “I can’t speak for every queer person, obviously, but I know that this affected many students on campus deeply,” Bistrek said.

Something of importance to note on campus is that there are only three flags technically permitted: the national ensign, the state flag of Michigan, and Aquinas flags. A flag for one guarantees a flag for all. This means that if one flag is allowed to be put up, any flag is allowed to be put up. The goal of this is to prevent controversy before it exists. Limitations such as these which prevent pride flags, also prevent the demonstration of much more harmful flags such as the Confederate flag for example.

The pride flag did not have permission to be taped to the register, and after being discovered it was instructed it be taken down immediately. It was left up for almost a week after the order, leaving many students wondering if something had changed and they would be permitted to leave it up. That was not the case and this action has affected students ever since. According to AQ Pride, it was not just creative dining services that took issue with the flag. In fact, there were complaints from members of staff, faculty, and alumni.

As the saying goes ‘you can’t please everyone;’ that is certainly the case. The flag being up was a problem and the flag being taken down was an even bigger one. Everything displayed on campus, physically or digitally, has to be in line with the messages of the Catholic Church. This is a fine line to tiptoe. Many Catholic colleges forbid the formation of student pride groups on campus, while others perform LGBTQ+ marriages. Everything exists on a spectrum.

The compromise to the flag being taken down that was presented to the student employees at the Moose is that they would be allowed to wear pride paraphernalia on their persons– for example, pins on their aprons. This seems like an unfair compromise as that was already allowed previous to the removal of the flag.

“When I was working, I had all sorts of pins and stuff. I had Black Lives Matter pins, I had on an AQ Pride pin, so you know, it had a rainbow on it,” said Bistrek speaking about her four year history as a student employee at the Moose. She went on to mention how not all of the other students’ employees wore their aprons while on shift because it was not a requirement. This means that there was no compromise at all and simply a return to the previous status quo. The pins students might have been wearing in the first place are still permitted.

“It was kind of a slap in the face to say we can’t even have a small flag and now you have to hide yourself and decrease your identity even more by having just a pin that is optional to wear,” Bistrek said. Now students will have to make concerted efforts to represent themselves or their allies, versus having support built into the institution. The truth is that AQ Pride is allowed to have a flag, or any other paraphernalia for that matter as long as it is displayed in their own space. The same is true for all other groups on campus.

Being a Catholic college, Aquinas represents a certain set of ideals, morals and values which often students are proud and willing to uphold. It becomes difficult to do so when some students feel that their very existence is unwelcome because it does not fit into this structure. It takes a lot of energy simply to make it through the day for some students, queer or not, and it becomes even more difficult when students cannot see any physical representations of support.

“It was just a small flag. We’re not asking for anything big, we’re not asking for multiple flags all around campus… It’s just that you’re supposed to support your students and this doesn’t feel like supporting the students,” Bistrek said.

One small flag represented a much larger idea for both sides. The pride flag was not taken down because it was in support of the LGBTQ+ community, it was taken down because it was a promotion of something, and to keep everyone safe Aquinas cannot promote anything.