'We are here': St. Edward's University students call for pride flag to be reinstated

St. Edward’s University students held an all-day peaceful protest and LGBTQ+ Pride celebration on campus Tuesday after a pride flag was removed from a coffeehouse on campus and the school's administration didn’t reinstall it.

On the overcast Tuesday, the university's seal — a landmark displayed on the campus' grounds, surrounded by rock benches — was covered in an assortment of rainbow and pride flags. Dozens of students huddled around the seal, wearing custom screen-printed shirts, reading, “Dear St. Ed’s, DON’T HIDE OUR PRIDE.”

“It’s very important that people are able to see that we exist here, and we exist in every space and that our school is proud of that,” Zachary Benoit, a senior who helped organize the protest and pride celebration, told the American-Stateman. “When they take it (the flag) down, it gives the impression that they want us to live in the shadows.”

Students purchased 1,000 pride flags — which they displayed in the lawn in front of the Fine Arts Center, a building next to Equity Hall, where the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences is housed and where the school placed a pride flag after it was taken down in the highly visited coffeehouse — after raising more than $500 from the Project Pride Flag campaign they created last week.

From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., students and some faculty members shared their stories, held up signs and chanted for the flag's reinstallation at the coffee shop. There was face painting, rainbow banners and pop music during the rally. Around 11 a.m., St. Edward's University President Montserrat Fuentes walked by the protest, and students chanted, "Bring back our flag." The school's top official, however, didn't engage with the students.

'I feel erased from campus': Why students are urging St. Edwards to bring back pride flag

Benoit said the protest and pride celebration was a demonstration to show the university's administration how much the campus community supports LGBTQ+ representation and that students won't sit back when the institution relegates the community to the shadows.

The pride flag was removed from the coffeehouse over the summer when the space underwent a renovation, the university said.

The coffeehouse, now called Meadows Coffeehouse and run by Bon Appétit, a food provider with which the university partners, was previously a Jo's Coffee shop. The pride flag at the coffeehouse had been flying high since 2018, when the university approved a request to put up the flag inside Jo's, according to Hilltop Views, the student newspaper.

Now that the flag has been removed, the university said it's displaying a pride flag in Equity Hall along with other flags and symbols celebrating identity.

Students, however, say Equity Hall is not a central location on campus or part of student life, and their activism began this semester after the university's administration deflected or rejected their attempts to have the flag reinstated in the coffeehouse.

Benoit, who is “insanely disappointed” in the university, said the protest is a way to make administrators aware of where students stand.

“We are currently not speaking with admin because they already know what we want. We've already had meetings with them, and they're not listening,” Benoit said. “This is for us to show them that we have numbers and we are a big part of this campus.”

The Statesman covered the protest Tuesday after being invited by students, but university officials approached the newspaper's reporter, asking her to leave and to seek permission to be on campus as per school policy. The university later denied the Statesman's request to attend the student pride flag installations at Equity Hall on Tuesday evening.

The university's president and its vice president for student affairs on Feb. 21 barred Hilltop Views student journalists from covering a discussion about the pride flag's removal during a Student Government Association Senate meeting. The university said it blocked student media coverage of the event to allow space for vulnerable conversations. Students in attendance said no one was allowed to document, write notes, take photos or take meeting minutes.

The Office for Student Affairs sent an email to students Monday acknowledging the hurt some have felt by the flag's removal and promised to work with students to create a central space with “inclusive symbols,” but it did not mention reinstating the pride flag at the coffeehouse.

The university on Tuesday did not respond to Statesman questions about the administration's response to the student protest or if it is reconsidering reinstalling the pride flag at the coffee shop.

'We want everyone to feel welcome'

Indigo Lane, a junior at St. Edward’s university who uses the pronoun they, said they went to a Christian conservative-leaning high school in Houston and instead chose to attend the university in South Austin because they believed it was a place they could be safely, openly queer.

When they arrived on campus, they felt “the most acceptance that I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” Lane said, and the pride flag was instrumental in creating that safe and inclusive environment.

“Them taking down the flag has broken that promise to me,” Lane said.

Lane was nervous to come to the Tuesday event, worried that administration officials would try to shut it down, but they said the pride and protest instantly felt "so joyful."

"I can feel the sense of community," they said.

Alex Barron, a St. Edward’s associate professor of literature and the faculty adviser to PRIDE and the Trans Wellness Org, said she is very proud of the students' demonstration. Multiple students approached her to say how important the pride flag was for them, several of whom came from Catholic families in which they couldn't be openly queer at home, she said.

“I just really assumed once the university heard that the pride flag really meant a lot to the students, they would change their minds,” Barron said. “I was really shocked when they didn’t.”

Barron, who teaches a class on queer art and activism, canceled her class Tuesday because the protest was relevant to the class’s material and mission, she said. At the protest, she read a letter from an alumnus to the students who referred to the campus as a “closet on the hilltop," something Barron, who is queer and has taught at St. Edward's since 2007, said the university has been traditionally called.

“We've had queer faculty, staff and students here for, I’m sure, as long as the university has been around, but it's been a struggle for our queer community to be able to be open,” Barron said. “We keep having to educate the university and push for change and push for visibility and push for inclusion, not just to be tolerated.”

Luis Rios, a St. Edward's sophomore, said the absence of the pride flag was the first thing he noticed when he came back to campus. He said he is protesting to show his support for its reinstatement and to celebrate LGBTQ+ pride.

“It’s important, especially in marginalized groups, to show that you’re represented, especially at a Catholic university,” he said. “We’re doing this because we love the campus, and we love the students here at St Edward’s. And we want everyone to feel welcome.”

Lane said they want administrators to know queer students and allies are making their voices heard and will continue pushing for the pride flag's return.

“History has its eyes on you,” Lane said. “We are not going anywhere; we are here to stay.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: St. Edward’s University students protest to reinstate pride flag