BU took down pride flags over spring break and now its campus is fighting back
Editor's note: This article has been updated on Friday, April 3 at 8:25 a.m. to include a response from a Boston University spokesperson.
BOSTON — Holding pride flags whipping in the wind, dozens of students, staff and faculty rallied outside Boston University President Melissa Gilliam's office on a brisk Thursday afternoon in response to the administration's removal of flags and political posters.
"It is clear to us at this point that the university administration's gaze is fixed firmly on Washington and not right here on campus," said Raul Fernandez, a senior lecturer at Boston University.
The pushback on the Boston University administration comes in light of LGBTQ+ flags being taken down in faculty offices and the Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies program office over spring break last month.
Speakers at the rally said the assault on free expression began before that, from cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion language and programming to pushback on pro-Palestine protesters to other signs and flags being ordered to be taken down. Even a cutout of Michelle Obama was taken down — though a five-foot Taylor Swift mylar balloon wasn't.
This crackdown comes in response to federal government pressure on higher education and has led the university to proactively comply with Trump administration directives, including the February 2025 "Dear Colleague" letter from the U.S. Department of Education, which targeted DEI programming, Fernandez said.
"It was since February of last year that we saw what it looked like for this university to pre-comply, to be complicit in what the Trump administration has been trying to do on college campuses. And it's just gotten worse and worse since then," Fernandez said.
The college community hand-delivered a petition , signed by over 2,000 people, noting their concerns about the "administration's decisions to restrict the constitutionally protected speech of members of our community."
They were met by a staff member who said she'd give it to the president. Rachel Lapal Cavallario, a Boston University spokesperson confirmed the petition was received.
"We will continue to engage with our faculty and community, and listen to their concerns as we work together," she said.
In a comment provided to MassLive in March, Lapal Cavallario said the university "upholds a content-neutral policy regarding time, place and manner restrictions."
She said the university isn't singling out specific communities and is committed to ensuring the university is inclusive, welcoming and supportive for the LGBTQIA+ community and other members.
The community members called for a revised posting policy that allows students, faculty and staff to hang signs, banners, flags or posters openly. They also asked the university to recognize that the signs and flags aren't a viewpoint but an identity, one that is feeling erased.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Boston University faculty, staff and students come together on April 2, 2026 to rally against administrative removal of signs.
Meg, a second-year graduate student at Boston University who identifies as queer, said LGBTQ+ identity isn't debatable. She asked that her name not be used because she feared potential employment consequences.
"It's not just a piece of cloth; it represents a history of struggle and success that can unify a community. To have that unification be discarded by an establishment that is supposed to represent its students and faculty is disheartening," she said.
Standing with a group of friends on the road, Meg said students want to feel safe, and there is no such thing as neutrality. She hopes the administration will put out a statement and ultimately just let members of the LGBTQ+ community be, instead of working actively against them.
"If people don't feel supported, the consequences can be really dangerous," Meg said.
Boston University students testified before the Boston City Council on March 23, raising concerns about a lack of transparency by the college administration, including the removal of pride flags.
Many college communities nationwide have been pushing back against similar administrative decisions.
In August 2025, Harvard told faculty members that "Black Lives Matter" signs in their office windows violated campus policies and must be taken down. The signs had been there since the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by a former Minneapolis Police Department officer in 2020.
Harvard said the sign violates university campus use rules, which were instituted in August 2024. After public outcry, the school updated its policy last month to allow signs visible to the public.
What does it mean to take down flags, signs at BU?
Keith Vincent, faculty in the program of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies, said the Pride flag that was taken down in the program's window symbolizes all the work that they do.
"The university says the policy is content-neutral, but for us in WGS (Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies), there is no neutrality when it comes to the pride flag. And the university cannot be neutral about it either," Vincent said.
The office had been told to take its flag down in August, but, upon refusing, it was forcibly taken down over spring break, he said.
"We invite the president and the trustees to send a clear and unequivocal message to our queer and trans students that the university has their back, that we won't sell them out and this will never happen again," he said.
When Nathan Phillips, a Boston University professor, saw his Pride flag taken down a month ago, he had a pit in his stomach, he said.
Since then, he has seen resistance on campus. Terrier Courage , a campus group advocating for free expression, was created by Jennifer Snyder-Cappione to enable campus-wide and statewide college organizing.
Snyder-Cappione, who organized the rally, said in an interview that the group was propelled by the sudden clampdown on campus signage and a shift away from terminology like DEI.
As the chair of admissions in the graduate biomedical program, she said she was put under "shocking pressure" to remove DEI language when discussing how the university holistically evaluates applicants and works with them.
Other resistance to the administration's backlash has come not from groups but from professors and community members putting up their own flags.
Angelo Petrigh, an associate professor in the school of law, is one of those people who added a Pride flag to his window to signal to students and the college that he was supporting queer students at a time when the community has been under siege by the federal government.
Petrigh said in an interview that he had a "Free Them All" sign up in his window in reaction to students like Rumeysa Öztürk, the Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by immigration agents. However, the administration took it down last spring.
The Pride flags are just another iteration of groups feeling silenced on campus, he said.
"Those of us who work with vulnerable communities, who are vulnerable themselves, will become something inconvenient, a political risk, something the institution would rather put away out of sight," Petrigh said. "Administrators will make the decision to silence us and set us aside, and they will say they are silencing us for the good of BU. But we are BU."
Laura Jiménez, a senior lecturer, said in an interview that as an "old-timey lesbian," the LGBTQ+ community isn't going to back down from a fight it has faced before.
"It's not about one community," she said, holding up a laminated poster of all the signage that has been taken down. "We need to be wary of bending a knee to an authoritarian regime before even being asked. The federal government is turning into an authoritarian regime."
The university's decision to ban the display of outward-facing Pride flags is an act of erasure and cowardice, said Vanessa Feola Soto, a Boston University third-year law student.
"LGBTQ+ persons are not a viewpoint. We're not an ideology. We are not one side of a politically contested issue. We're a reality," Feola Soto said. "We're a part of this community. And the Pride flag isn't just any old flag — Pride flags are sacred symbols of representation and celebration for our community."
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