Some faculty members believe university officials are suppressing free speech or expression around certain causes in direct response to the federal government’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Several Boston University professors fired off a letter to the school's administration Monday, after the university removed pride flags from public view. According to the letter addressed to campus president Melissa Gilliam, the flags were pulled from windows in the women's studies program and some professors’ offices.
These acts “suppress free speech on campus” and are “just one of a growing number of disappointing choices by the administration to contradict the values it purports to champion," wrote associate professor Joseph Harris, who co-leads the BU chapter of the of the American Association of University Professors. The pride flags were taken down over spring break last week. One was removed from a window in the main sitting area of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at 704 Commonwealth Avenue, according to its director. Administrators also removed a flag from the BU Children's Center, according to the faculty union chapter. And they took down the flag hanging from professor Nathan Phillips' fourth-floor office window overlooking Commonwealth Avenue. “I came in Monday morning to find that my flag was taken down,” Phillips said. “They didn’t confiscate the flag, they just took it down and put it in my office on a chair with a note,” adding it was the second time in a week that happened. The note, which he photographed, said the “posting on an outward facing window or door” was taken down “per University policy” and that university affiliates are “welcome to display signs, posters, or flags on authorized bulletin boards or on interior walls of their private offices.” A note atop a folded pride flag explains why the banner was removed from professor Nathan Phillips' window. In a statement, BU spokesman Colin Riley said the policy is “content-neutral” and that enforcement “is not an endorsement nor rejection of any point of view.” “We remain committed to ensuring BU is an inclusive, welcoming and supportive community, and there are many ways to express and demonstrate our values consistent with policies," he said. But some faculty members believe university officials are unjustifiably suppressing free speech or expression around certain causes in direct response to the federal government’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The AAUP chapter sent Gilliam a list of more than a dozen instances over the past year in which administrators are alleged to have chilled speech by students or faculty. The examples they cite include “repeatedly” removing a sign in a professor’s office window expressing support for detained international students and discontinuing the “POV” section of the university-run online publication BU Today, as well as comments. Faculty say the recent campaign to remove signs and flags on campus is part of “a more systematic campaign" that has involved Human Resources. “We’ve seen a pattern of growing efforts to suppress free speech and infringe on free speech,” Harris said. “It's really shameful and it's not in step with BU's culture or history or that of the state or city in which we live.” He noted, for instance, that Boston is aThe pride flag hanging in the Womens' Studies department had been displayed since spring 2025, according to professor Cati Connell. The department was first told last August to take it down. Connell said the request “came at the same time as several other institutional decisions that similarly fall in line with the Trump administration’s anti-LGBT and anti-DEI demands,” including BU pausing an initiative"intended to recruit and support underrepresented racial/ethnic faculty." Connell added that BU’s enforcement of the outward facing sign policy is “at best, a very dismaying and unfortunate coincidence of timing, as it corresponded with the Trump administration’s attempts to suppress free speech and/or advocacy for the legitimacy, dignity, and visibility of LGBTQ lives.”restricts “unattended placards, banners, or other signs” unless fixed to an approved location like a “Free Expression Board.” University policies around free expression went through updates in September 2024, according to a university-wide message sent by then-newly installed president Gilliam. In an email with the subject line “Ensuring an Open, Civil Campus Environment,” Gilliam said the school had an updated interim policy that “sets forth time, place, and manner guidelines to ensure that expressive activities do not unreasonably interfere with or disrupt university operations.” But some faculty say the university has not uniformly enforced its policy. Phillips said the flag of Seattle's professional hockey team has been affixed to a dorm and allowed to remain, undisturbed. “ That's one of my major problems with what's going on, the selective targeting of a community, the LGBTQ community, when other signs and flags have been left up and left alone on campus for months," he said.His letter added that BU’s recent actions are particularly"disappointing" given faced by the federal government on First Amendment grounds following its efforts to encroach on academic freedom.its own policy barring visible campus signs after pushback from faculty there.Phillips said Tuesday that after he came into his office to find the flag was removed, he"put it right back up and it's actually up right now." “ I have no idea what happens if strike three happens, I really don't,” he said. “If BU wants to escalate this, they’re at risk of real reputational damage, of documented selective enforcement."
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