Around Feb. 14, the Administration and Finance Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst called for UMass Transit Services to take their pride flag down from the flagpole at the Bus Garage due to it being in violation of the flag policy.

The official UMass flag policy states that “in the interest of campus harmony, the campus will not authorize the use of special issues flags, except those decreed by the President of the United States, the U.S. Congress, the Governor of Massachusetts, or the State Legislature.” The responsibility of flag regulation falls on the Office of Administration and Finance.

UMass Transit originally flew its pride flag on a flagpole outside of the main visitor’s entrance. Stephanie Goodwin, a service manager at transit who emphasized that she was speaking as an individual and not on behalf of UMass Transit, recalls that the flag was put up about two years ago. To her knowledge, she said that transit has always complied with state flag code, taking the flag to half-mast when necessary and flying it below the American flag.

“We genuinely thought that there was nothing wrong with putting the flag up,” Goodwin said. “The goal of flying a pride flag is to make everybody feel welcome … and then by ordering us to take that down … the symbolism is really striking.”

Goodwin said that someone had lodged a complaint against UMass Transit for having the flag up, and a few days later, the flag was taken down.

According to Goodwin, transit has not experienced any previous issues with flying the pride flag, at least those that reached the administrative level. She said she feels communication between the administration and transit was lacking, and that there was no warning or transparency regarding the removal of the flag and signs.

“To me, it seems like the UMass administration is hiding behind vague policy and it just feels kind of cowardly,” she said. Goodwin thinks the administration doesn’t respect the student employees or invest effort into them by making them feel heard and safe.

Haylie Prevett, Transit Planning Analyst, thinks the flag policy is “thinly veiled.”

“It makes sense that they wouldn’t want to fly the Confederate flag or a Nazi flag, just like hateful flags, but they could specifically outline that,” she said.

Two months prior in December, the gender-neutral bathroom signs inside transit facilities were removed by a party of three people sent by the administration.

Cam Boylan, a Meet and Greet Supervisor who emphasized that he’s not speaking on behalf of the UMTS, said that he came in for his shift at 8:30 a.m. during winter break and saw the other two people on shift talking, noticeably shaken up.

They told him that three people had come in, taken the signs down and damaged the wall pretty noticeably. He said that this damage was not fixed until over a week later. The signs themselves had been confiscated.

The gender-neutral bathroom signs were placed underneath the original gendered signs. They were put up by Constance Englert, Transportation Services Manager, to convey that anyone had the right to use the restroom they felt comfortable using, according to Boylan.

“It just kind of felt like a slap in the face to a lot of people at transit because transit has a really … large population of people that don’t identify with their gender assigned at birth,” Boylan said. “And that’s why we took both the signage and the flag situation so seriously.”

Sam Masinter, UMass Amherst spokesperson and Associate Vice Chancellor for Issues Management, stated in an email that the signs were taken down since they were in violation of the plumbing code and not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“In terms of ADA, there are certain members of the community that may have visual inabilities,” Shane Conklin, Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities & Campus Services, said. “There’s Braille on official code signage so that members of our community that have visual issues can help navigate to the correct room and understand more about what is in that room.”

Neither Masinter nor Conklin provided specific information on how the signs were in violation of the plumbing code.

“I feel like they’re just using policy as some sort of guise to basically be compliant with the new administration,” Prevett said. “It definitely seemed very deliberate and that came out of nowhere.”

Rebecca Hamlin, Director of Legal Studies and Professor of Political Science, discussed the legality of the administration’s actions. “Are they officially sticking to the … letter of the law, what is probably constitutionally sound? The answer there is yes.”

“The policy is the way it is because of previous court precedents, requiring state institutions, institutions of government, like public universities, to have neutral policies like this. That’s just the way that the First Amendment has been interpreted. And so, when push comes to shove, and a spotlight is put on a particular flag flying policy they kind of have to stick to the neutrality,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin stated that executing policies relating to the First Amendment requires complaining from emboldened people, comparing the strict enforcement of it to a “game of whack-a-mole.”  She added that the removal of the flag and signs were legal.

“I have a lot of critiques of the administration on a lot of things and on this one, I just don’t think they’re doing the wrong thing,” Hamlin said.

She said that if these actions were taken due to a student complaint, the university could have responded by saying that the pride flag does not violate a content neutral policy but adds that it was a choice the administration had to make. “It’s not like they had no choice, right? Like I do think it is a choice. It’s the conservative and cautious choice, which may be the wise choice and maybe the winning choice ultimately. And they may have gotten very wise advice from legal counsel to make that choice.”

When asked why students feel so strongly about the removal of the pride flag and gender-neutral bathroom signs, Goodwin cited the significant LGBTQ population at transit and the importance of the pride flag and gender-neutral bathroom signs in symbolizing that all were welcome there.

When the signs were taken down, she said that people’s sense of safety and acceptance was also shaken, as people felt accepted at UMass or at their workplace — transit — even if they did not feel that way at home.

“The outrage comes more from the timing between the presidential election, and after that, the removal of the bathroom signs, and then now the pride flag, knowing the President’s views on LGBTQ+ people. It’s not a coincidence,” Prevett said.

Boylan added that when the flag and signs were taken down, people felt like they were not welcome at their workplace, though the community quickly rallied to support each other. People initially felt like they were being attacked until they received an explanation.

After the explanation, Boylan said that people felt like it made more sense, but that the issue was that there was no explanation for either incident until they started lodging complaints to the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

“The whole timing, the methods and the lack of communication really, it’s what caused such a stir at transit,” Boylan said.

In response to the flag and signs being taken down, Goodwin created a flyer to get the word out and file formal complaints to the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI). She explained that she created the flyer after her meeting with the OEI officer and the vice chancellor.

When Goodwin asked what the university was going to do for transit, they said that meetings would be held, but Goodwin felt like that was not a satisfactory answer. She was told, however, that students could report when they felt unsafe, unheard, unseen on campus or any incidents of that nature to the OEI, so she printed out a QR code to that form, made flyers and hoped that enough people would submit it to catch the OEI’s attention.

On March 18, UMass Transit put up a department flag on the flagpole outside of its facilities. The flag is black with UMTS in bold white letters. The stripe that goes through the “UMTS” text is a rainbow gradient, and so is the smaller text that is UMTS’ logo: “The team that moves UMass.”

“If you think about it, a flag is a piece of fabric, and the gender-neutral bathroom signs are also just a thing … But regardless of whether it’s a symbol, an item, an idea … it all comes down to the feeling of being protected or not, because there’s so much power in symbolism,” Goodwin said.

The university has not commented on the new flag.

Grace Chai can be reached at [email protected]. Norah Stewart can be reached at [email protected].