A year ago this week, Yale students tore down the American flag on Beinecke Plaza. As they did so, crowds of protesters clapped and cheered. 

The night followed a weeklong occupation of Beinecke Plaza, where students, faculty and New Haven residents protested Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and asked the Yale administration to divest from all military weapons manufacturers. On Friday, April 19, over 400 protesters gathered in front of the Schwarzman Center to protest Israel and Yale; about 100 students set up tents to stay overnight. At 11:28 p.m., protesters tore down the American flag in the center of the Plaza. As the flag is lowered, protesters can be heard chanting “viva viva Palestina” and loudly cheering. That night’s cheers weren’t just a rejection of a flag — they were a rejection of the values it stands for. And when elite universities harbor students who no longer embody pride in American ideals, it’s no wonder taxpayers are asking: why fund institutions whose students seem ashamed of the nation that funds them?

These Yale students are lucky. In Germany, insulting national symbols, including the flag, is a criminal offense. In France, defiling the flag during a public demonstration is punishable with up to six months in prison or a 7500 ​​euro fine. Yet in the U.S., flag desecration is legal. A 1989 Supreme Court decision cemented flag desecration as protected under the First Amendment. While the pro-Palestine protesters could be punished for defacing Yale property, the Constitution otherwise protects their right to disrespect the flag. 

While the flag at the center of Yale’s campus was not so lucky, the flag at UNC Chapel Hill experienced a different fate. When pro-Palestine protesters attempted to tear down Old Glory, a horde of fraternity brothers banded together to protect the flag. Alex Johnson, a member of UNC’s chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha who protected the flag, described their motivation: “Too many people have sacrificed everything for it, the least we could do was keep it flying.” 

The U.S. flag represents the enduring values of the American project. The thirteen stripes honor the thirteen original colonies that boldly declared independence from British tyranny, while the fifty identical stars represent the unity of states, each equal in the union. Its colors are deeply symbolic: the red for valor and bravery, the white for purity and innocence and the blue for vigilance, perseverance and justice. Throughout U.S. history, the flag has not just been cloth, but an emblem — it was raised proudly over Iwo Jima, above the ramparts of Fort McHenry, on the surface of the moon. Everywhere, it stood as a promise of hope and liberty.  

While the United States has fallen short of its ambitions throughout its history, the flag is a manifestation of what the U.S. aspires to be. Tearing it down does not highlight American shortcomings; rather, desecration of the flag is a message that one does not believe in American values.

The flag torn down on Beinecke Plaza was suspended on the Ledyard Flagstaff, erected in memory of Augustus Canfield Ledyard, a Yale alumnus who died in 1899 during the Philippine-American War. Beside it, a memorial cenotaph to the Yalies killed in WWI reads, “In Memory of the Men of Yale who, true to Her Traditions, gave Their Lives that Freedom Might not perish from the Earth.” To those who sacrificed for freedom, the desecration of the flag — the very symbol of freedom — must seem bewildering. And yet, it is precisely the freedom they fought for that allows such an act to occur. The flag represents liberty; tearing it down is only legal because liberty endures. In that sense, flag desecration is paradoxical: it protests the very freedom that makes it possible. Though American liberty includes the right to reject American ideals, rejecting liberty and other values — as exemplified by flag desecration — still remains anti-American. The system allows for dissent, yet rejection of the system itself is not a fulfillment of the system’s purpose, but a betrayal of it. Though liberty protects the act, flag desecration still signals disdain for the freedoms that make protest meaningful. That’s what makes the spectacle on Beinecke so unsettling: it wasn’t a plea for a better America — rather contempt for America itself. 

When people wonder why Trump is targeting Ivy League universities like Yale, I think of the hundreds of students who cheered as Old Glory fell to the ground. To much of the country, Yale students tearing down the flag is evidence that the Ivy League is morally bankrupt. They question whether America’s great academic institutions are truly for America, or if they rather stand for the sideways values of those who cheered as the flag came toppling down. Now, Trump’s White House has the backing to say, ‘we are not giving tax dollars to educate those who promote anti-American sentiment,’ and they therefore threaten Yale’s funding.  

I decry the impacts of university funding cuts by the Trump Administration. Much of that funding supports crucial scientific research and innovation. But I also understand why Americans are fed up. When those at institutions they help fund appear to reject the very values that make America worth defending — liberty, justice, bravery — Americans ask, what are we paying for? The cheers of my peers as our flag came down scared me. What do they stand for? Does the next generation of leaders despise the ideals our country was built on? Do they despise America? I sure hope not. 

When Americans’ perception of the Ivy League is of raucous protests and flag desecration, it is no surprise they want to close the checkbook. If elite students continue to sneer at the nation that sustains them, I suspect it’s only a matter of time until America stops footing their bill. 

JOSHUA DANZIGER is a first year in Trumbull College. His monthly column “Power” explores geography, demography and the state. He can be reached at joshua.danziger@yale.edu.