.....The University of Southern California will not take down the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's flag in front of one of its main buildings on campus despite concerns raised by Vietnamese American students on campus, a university spokesman said today.
.....Little Saigon activists approached USC officials last month after the Vietnamese Student Association on campus raised issue with the so-called communist flag being hung at the university's Von KleinSmid Center.
.....James Grant, a university spokesman, said he believes a public forum held Monday on campus about the flag issue was "constructive." But, he added, that the university's position remains the same.
....."The university displays the flags of nations from which our international students come to attend USC," he said. "These flags represent nations recognized by the United Nations and the U.S. Department of State."
.....Christopher Tran, a member of the Vietnamese Student Association, said he wanted to explore all options before resorting to a large-scale protest. He said the flag hanging at the center does not represent him or the 1,000 Vietnamese American students attending the school.
.....Tran and other members of his group requested Monday that the university either take down the communist flag or consider adding the red and yellow flag of former South Vietnam to the exhibit or take down all the flags.
.....Steven Huynh, also an association member, said the communist flag certainly doesn't represent him.
....."My mother was a refugee and my father was a prisoner of war who later became a refugee," he said. "So this is really an important issue for me."
.....Close to 49,000 people voted on The Orange County Register's online poll last month on the issue. An overwhelming 91 percent said the university should remove the flag; 3 percent said it should be left alone and 6 percent said it should be replaced with the South Vietnamese flag.
.....But Vu Nguyen, a member of the Vietnamese International Students Association, which consists of students from Vietnam, says he is hurt that people want to take down the flag that represents him and more than 20 students on campus.
....."That flag represents us as well as the 80 million people of Vietnam," he said. "I respect that the Vietnamese American community has a separate flag. But it would be an insult to us to have our country's flag taken down."
.....Grant said the university does not intend to hang the South Vietnamese flag at that location because it does not represent international students. Asked if the red and yellow flag will be flown at another location on campus, Grant said: "I can't say."
.....Little Saigon activists say it's a significant issue for this largely refugee, expatriate community. Most of its members fled Vietnam by boat after the communist takeover on April 30 1975. The community is in the process of organizing several Black April commemorative ceremonies to mark the occasion next week.
.....Local activist Hung Phuong Nguyen said he and others are standing by to organize a protest if the university fails to take down the communist flag or add the red and yellow flag. Nguyen says he and other activists plan to send out letter[s] to all universities in California to remove the communist flag and replace it with the red and yellow flag.
....."We want to give USC students the chance to discuss this with the officials," he said. "We've stepped aside for now, but if they ask for our help in protesting USC, we'll definitely join the protest."
.....Nguyen and other activists were successful recently in getting Irvine Valley College to take down an entire flag exhibit because it had the communist flag in it......Bao Mai, a member of Garden Grove-based Union for Vietnamese Students Association, agreed.
....."The school doesn't seem to understand that one flag does not represent everybody," he said. "If the students can't work it out, we'll be supporting them in a protest."
.....Huynh said he does not believe anything positive came from Monday's campus meeting, which he said included no top university officials.
....."I think there is going to be a protest over this issue," he said. "It seems almost inevitable now."
Thursday, April 24, 2008
"It seems almost inevitable now"
From this afternoon’s OC Reg: USC officials say Vietnam's flag will remain:
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26 comments:
Hi! I told you that the administration @ USC would do whatever they wanted to regarding this issue. I suspected that they'd leave the flag their too. From what I see, schools like this usually go w/what their donors want too, & last time I checked the students only pay for their tuition, & not the real big bucks.:-)
As a private university the law provides USC far more power to restrict unwanted protestors on campus than it does public institutions. In comparison to the privates, public institutions have more susceptibility to litigation if they try to restrict protests. In the end, it may simply be less costly for a public college to concede to a perspective rather than to stand on principle of argument. Maybe your president simply has more of an interest in spending his budget on educational opportunities for students instead of getting into a pissing contest over a flag.
Fight on!
oh goody!
What ever happened to IVC's flags?
Where did they put them?
Did they observe the official flag-folding protocol?
Raghu is taking all the flags with him when he goes to Sacramento.
Then he's going to present them to Schwartzenegger.
The Gov will then ordered them hung in the Capitol thus luring the protesters north.
They will besiege the Capitol and bring Arnold's reign to an end.
Tom Fuentes will then reign over the land and peace will come to the little kingdom of California.
Glenn would have to spend HIS BUDGET in order to deal with some kind of protest on campus?
How does that work?
You're obviously a clueless faculty member, 8:52.
At Long Beach City College they simply called in the cops.
At UCLA they always seemed to call in the LAPD to break up the drunken post-game hijinks - does UCLA pay the LAPD directly? Does the LAPD bill the university?
I'm just asking - I don't know.
That 49,000 number is highly suspect. I don't think that many people actually read that rag, let alone are genuinely concerned about some irritating characters with nothing else to do with themselves.
Is this only about money?
Isn't it ALWAYS about the money?
It's ALWAYS about the money - consider Glenn's plan for the copier machines....
What PLAN for the copiers?
How are the copiers connected to the missing flags?
It's only about money when it comes to faculty salaries ;-)
Cetainly the Admin salaries are really something!
What's Glenn's plan for the copiers anyway?
www.ronpaul2008.com
The copy machines can be used to make copies of the flag of The Peoples Republic of Vietnam. Countless copies...some in color too!...all nice and flaming commie red.
Once the folks in Little Saigon find this out no copy machine in your district will be safe
Ol' "Red Emma" probably has a couple of communist flags he can lend to the IVC campus. Maybe he can hang them by the copier, where all the veterans that work at IVC can see them.
And for that reason, Ol Red Emma is a target.
History suggests that Red Emma was deported first to Russia - then was kicked out by the commies there and finally wound up in France, maybe Germany.
Red Emma, for the record, is an anarchist, not a communist. There's a difference. Check out the Spanish Civil War.
And as an anarchist, Ol Red Emma is a target, 9:55.
Should we be more concerned about the anarchist as a "target" than the targets of anarchists?
The official flag of vietnam is the red flag with yellow star. You know if i had abeef with every country that I did not like then I want to take down those flags too.
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