Cities across Mississippi and throughout the Golden Triangle have chosen to take the state flag down in recent weeks, but the flag remains flying at one of Columbus’ leading institutions.
Mississippi University for Women flies the flag at one site on campus — just inside the main entrance off College Street. The Columbus university is not alone: In all, five of the state’s eight public universities still fly the flag. They are MUW, Delta State University, University of Mississippi, University of Southern Mississippi and Alcorn State University, according to the State Institutions of Higher Learning.
MUW president Dr. Jim Borsig told The Dispatch on Thursday that the issue of taking down the flag has not come up in his time on campus from faculty or the student body.
The cities of Columbus and Starkville, along with a handful of other Mississippi towns, chose to remove the flag following the June 17 shooting death of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. Photographs of the accused shooter later surfaced showing him with the Confederate battle flag, which is displayed on Mississippi’s state flag.
“I think that this issue is something that our university and community will consider coming back for fall semester,” Borsig said. “I would think and expect there would be more discussion on this campus and all campuses across the state.”
Three public universities in the state do not fly the flag: Jackson State University, Mississippi Valley State University and Mississippi State University, which voted to not fly the flag on campus in 2001.
“I think this is a teachable moment,” Borsig said. “This is the state flag, and it does fly at our front entrance.”
Borsig said that personally he feels that “flags should be a rallying point and not a point of division.”
He said the role of universities is to facilitate intelligent discussion about an issue and the passions behind it. The university president expects such a discussion will take place this fall.
“What I would hope comes out of this would be a learning moment to dig deeper in the symbolism and the issues and to try and build that understanding that drives public policy decisions,” Borsig said.
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