‘It’s offensive’: SC senator urges The Citadel to remove Confederate flag from chapel
A South Carolina lawmaker wants The Citadel to immediately remove a Confederate flag that hangs inside a chapel on its Charleston campus, calling the banner offensive to Black cadets who attend the state-funded military school.
After introducing a resolution Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia, said the rebel banner does not belong in the Summerall Chapel and questioned if it is protected by state law.
“Get that flag out of a place where people worship their God,” Harpootlian said in a speech on the Senate floor.
The measure reignites a long-standing debate about whether the Confederate naval flag in the Summerall Chapel is protected by the Heritage Act. The law requires a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature to remove historic monuments as well as the names of historic figures from public buildings and other places.
The effort comes one day after The State newspaper published an article documenting overt and subtle racism experienced by Black Citadel cadets. In the story, Kumba McGill, a 2005 Black female graduate of The Citadel, called the flag in the chapel “a symbol of hate” and suggested the school move it into a museum.
Harpootlian’s resolution calls for The Citadel to “immediately remove the Confederate Naval Jack flag in Summerall Chapel” and dispose of it, provided that it is not displayed anywhere else on The Citadel’s campus.
Harpootlian said in an interview Tuesday he was “astounded” to learn that the Confederate Naval flag still flies in the school chapel despite multiple attempts to remove the flag.
Six days after the 2015 shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, The Citadel Board of Visitors voted 9-3 to remove the flag. Harpootlian said if his resolution passes, it would “authorize them to do that.”
Citadel officials said the Heritage Act prevents them from removing the flag because it is an honor display. A 2014 legal opinion issued by S.C. Attorney Alan Wilson said that an honor display, even if it’s donated, is protected under the Heritage Act. The banner in question was gifted to the school in 1939.
Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the college, said following the law falls under the school’s core values of honor, duty and respect.
“The South Carolina Attorney General stated previously that the college was following state law by treating the flag as a memorial that falls under the Heritage Act. If the law changes, The Citadel will act in accordance with that change,” Dorrian said in a statement.
Wilson’s 2014 ruling last came under fire in July 2020, letter when 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, a 1989 Citadel graduate, complained about the continued presence of the banner in the Summerall Chapel.
Harpootlian, a Columbia attorney, called it “one of the worst opinions I’ve ever read.”
“I am not one of those folks that wants to rename anything. I think there are better ways to deal with historical issues than stripping away our history. So that’s not what this is about,” Harpootlian said while speaking on the floor.
He gestured to a portrait in the Senate chambers of the late Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in 2015 along with eight other Black parishioners at Charleston’s historic Mother Emanuel AME Church, where Pinckney was also a pastor. Harpootlian reminded his fellow members the flag was used by a white supremacist “as a basis for his execution of one of our own.”
He also said rebel banners were seen waving on Jan. 6, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“So when we ask African American citizens to go to the military school they pay for and sit in a chapel to pray to God and have to stare at that symbol, I think it is offensive,” Harpootlian said.
Harpootlian said he has not formed a coalition to support this resolution but hopes it will spur eventual action.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 3:01 PM.
