A national movement to restrict the Pride flag in schools
LGBTQ advocates are sounding the alarm as municipalities, and school districts are passing measures in the United States that prohibit the display of the rainbow Pride flag in classrooms and public properties. The LGBTQ community says such moves are part of a broader wave of GOP-endorsed reforms and policy changes that attack the use of preferred pronouns, changes in school curricula, book bans, and limitations to reproductive rights.
The restrictions have been sanctioned in various locations across the country, including Delaware, Ohio, Cold Spring, New York, and several school districts in states such as Wisconsin and Utah. While a similar measure in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was recently defeated, a Republican state representative from Florida, David Borrero, has introduced a bill that would limit the display of flags in all public school buildings and government offices.
While the bans are not explicitly expressed as prohibitions on the rainbow flag, they limit flag displays to government and military flags. In the case of Delaware, Ohio, city manager Thomas Homan informed flag and banner applicants in May 2022 that the city was pausing its program for review in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that had ruled that Boston city officials had violated a Christian group’s free speech rights when they denied a request to fly a Christian flag over city hall. Delaware’s program allowed organizations to request their flags be displayed on city street poles.
On March 7, City Council members in Huntington Beach, California, are set to take their final vote on a similar measure. Two previous council votes have favored the ordinance 4-3. The proposed measure notes that businesses and individuals can still display flags of their choice on private property.
Advocates are concerned that the bans on the rainbow flag are part of a broader wave of GOP-endorsed reforms and policy changes that target the rights of the LGBTQ community. “We’re in the middle of an avalanche of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills,” said Dara Adkison, board secretary for TransOhio, a trans equality organization in Columbus. “They’re playing that numbers game of, ‘What can we squeak through?’”
The LGBTQ community is responding to these bans by launching the Save the Rainbow Flag campaign. This community-led effort provides instruction to advocates on mobilization and letter-writing activism. The Gilbert Baker Foundation, the New York-based organization named for the flag’s creator, has also released an open letter from the American Civil Liberties Union with legal arguments against flag restrictions.
The Pride flag has become an iconic symbol of LGBTQ inclusion. Its creator, Gilbert Baker, designed the six-striped rainbow flag in 1978 at the request of LGBTQ activist and lawmaker Harvey Milk in San Francisco, California. Since then, the Pride flag has been a symbol of inclusion for LGBTQ people worldwide.
Advocates say that the flag is an essential representation of diversity and inclusion. “It’s that age-old visibility of knowing where you’re welcome,” said Adkison of TransOhio. “The Pride flag is an easy way of knowing you have some allies there.”
In response to the ban, Debbie Chang, president and CEO of the private foundation funded by nonprofit health plan Blue Shield of California, informed Huntington Beach officials last week that the group had canceled plans to conduct a two-day retreat for trustees and senior management in the city in June. She said that given the LGBTQ community’s high health inequities and domestic violence rates, the city’s move to ban the Pride flag “puts a vulnerable population at risk of further harm.”
Peg Corley, executive director of LGBTQ Center OC, based in Santa Ana, California, said that the Huntington Beach council members were sending “a very loud message” by considering the measure.
