I am just as shocked as the rest of you.
Via Campus Reform:
In a letter uncovered by Campus Reform Tuesday afternoon, over 60 professors have endorsed the attempt to ban the American flag from an “inclusive” space on the campus of UC Irvine (UCI).
The letter, which features over 1,200 signatures as of this writing, praises the ban on national flags, especially the American flag, passed by the Associated Students of University of California, Irvine (ASUCI) last week. After Campus Reform broke the story, the ban received intense media scrutiny and was vetoed by organization’s Executive Cabinet.
“We write to support the six members who offered the resolution to remove national flags from the ASUCI lobby,” the letter reads. “The university ought to respect their political position and meet its obligation to protect and promote their safety. The resolution recognized that nationalism, including U.S. nationalism, often contributes to racism and xenophobia[.]”
“This is a more or less uncontroversial scholarly point, and in practice the resolution has drawn admiration nationally from much of the academic community,” the letter continues.
Prominent UC Irvine professors that allegedly signed the letter of support include James Porter, Professor of Classics; Virginia Jackson, UCI Endowed Chair in Rhetoric; Adriana Johnson, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature; Nasrin Rahimieh, Professor of Comparative Literature; and Luis Aviles, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese.
The letter complains that since the resolution came to light, “UCI has been inundated with racist, xenophobic comments and death threats against the students from people who are, precisely, invested in the paraphernalia of nationalism,” and that UCI’s Facebook page has “filled up with violent and racist remarks” which its moderator did not delete.