Students at Virginia Tech are fearing for their safety this week after Pride flags were stolen from school grounds and replaced with flags of the Confederate Army.

While this may not come as much of a surprise — Virginia was once the slave capital of the country — the act of replacing the flags with ones that symbolize racism and hate has many students on campus feeling unwelcome.

The rainbow flags were originally hung outside the Virginia Tech religious center, a symbol of peace and acceptance from an institution traditionally reluctant to accept homosexuality. Despite this, homophobic tensions are still very present in the community. Over the last two weeks, Pride flags have been stolen from the religious center three times. However, after the latest incident, the vandals responsible left a calling card: two Confederate flags ominously floating in the wind.

While annoying, petty theft of Pride flags was never much of a concern when it came to the safety and well-being of students on campus. Church officials and campus security had not looked into previous incidents, due to the lack of a threat. After all, it could just be some neighboring kids attempting a prank.

But with the emergence of the Confederate flags, a known symbol of white supremacy and hatred, authorities were alerted, and an investigation has been opened. Brett Graham, who runs the religious center, noted safety as one of the main reasons behind the heightened concern "My number one concern is the students and making sure they feel they have a safe environment to come, to live out their faith, and to be affirmed in who they are," he said in a press statement.

A symbol of violence, a history of lies
Despite those that claim the Confederate flag is a symbol of history, it has always incited fear in anyone who is not white, cis, or straight. The flag we commonly associate with the Confederate Army today, sometimes referred to as "the Southern Cross" or "the Stainless Banner," was the second design for the seceding states. The first attempt, a cheap knock-off of the United States flag, was so similar that Confederate soldiers fired at their own troops.

(Modern Confederate sympathizers also argue the war wasn't about slavery, but rather economics, despite the fact that Confederate soldiers couldn't even understand who they were fighting, let alone the economic system of a developing country.)

That ugly second attempt of a flag didn't even last long in the Civil War, as the Confederate army drew up two more flags, which are not seen or displayed today. If fans of the Confederate flag took a class on critical race theory instead of attempting to get all their information from History Channel commercials, they might have the good sense to at least switch it up and use some of the other flag designs.

The Southern Cross flag actually disappeared after the Confederate Army fell and the country entered the period called Reconstruction. By the early 20th century, Southerners had conveniently forgotten many inconvenient details about the Civil War, arguing that it was actually fought to protect the genteel way of Southern life and states' rights from "Northern aggression."

As such fairytales about the antebellum era began to be popularized, so did the image of the Confederate flag and the ideals of Jim Crow. Staunch conservatives, angered by Black voters, began to fly the flag as a symbol of "Dixie," out of a desire to return to the mythical old South, to halt the civil rights movement, and to end racial segregation.

After the landmark 1954 court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated schools, the flag became even more popular. State capitals began to fly it, and its symbols were incorporated into state flags. The Ku Klux Klan also began to fly the flag in their violent raids and attempts to intimidate Black citizens.

The flag today stands as a symbol of hatred toward the Black community. It carries little historical context regarding the Civil War or Southern heritage, as it only began to gain popularity as a symbol against integration and progress. Today, most rightly associate it with the KKK and other domestic terrorist organizations.

A danger to students
The KKK has loudly been against the LGBTQ community. In 2015 a KKK rally called on all members of the Klan to "slaughter Gay people." Replacing the Pride flag with a known symbol of hatred is a chilling reminder that many people still harbor violently racist and homophobic ideas.

This ideology is especially frightening when it occurs on college campuses. In less populated areas and more conservative counties, the student body is often much more diverse than the surrounding region, as most students come from other towns, states, and even countries. For BIPOC and LGBTQ students from more accepting hometowns, this adjustment to a homogeneous white and straight culture can be incredibly isolating.

Furthermore, hate crimes on college campuses have been on a steady rise over the last few years. Since the events of Charlottesville in 2017, wherein the KKK took to the streets and killed a young protester with a car, hate crimes have occurred at a much higher frequency.

In March 2021, the University of Washington released a statement addressing an increase in hate crimes against Asian students and faculty after two Asian American churches in North Seattle were vandalized and a Japanese-language teacher from the university was assaulted.

In November 2020, Gonzaga University, in Spokane, also issued a statement addressing racially charged hate crimes after a Zoom meeting of the Black Student Union was hijacked by an unidentified individual who proceeded to show clips of lynchings and the Confederate flag.

As hate crimes continue to happen on campuses across the United States, even here in Washington, students are finding it harder to feel safe at their schools. The latest crime at Virginia Tech goes to show that, even when institutions make an effort to show students they are welcome, the greater community is still there, watching and ready to strike.

Until these acts of violence and intimidation are taken seriously, we will not see an end. There is no justification for the Confederate flag: it is not a symbol of history but rather a symbol of hatred and terror. BIPOC and LGBTQ students in all communities deserve better. They deserve protection from heinous acts like those at Virginia Tech, and those responsible must be held accountable.