CHICAGO (LifeSiteNews) – The University of Chicago is opting not to fly a rainbow LGBT flag this “pride month,” opting instead to commit to “institutional neutrality” in a surprising blow to woke activists’ stranglehold on modern American academia.
The UC Laboratory High School student newspaper U-High Midway reports that UC administrators made the announcement last week that raising the “pride” flag on the Blaine Courtyard flagpole would have constituted “institutional expression” in violation of university policy to void any symbolism that could be construed as endorsing political messages or policy positions. The news ends a tradition that began in 2022.
“To be clear, the full membership of LGBTQ+ people in the Lab community is not a contested issue. It is a core value,” Interim Director Ethan Bueno de Mesquita wrote in a follow-up message to the community June 1, stressing that pro-LGBT student expression would not be prohibited elsewhere on campus. “Just some forum where students can have their voices heard would be my preference,” he added. “We just have to figure out the logistics of that.”
The College Fix warns that the news does not signal a broader shift away from LGBT ideology on UC’s part, noting that the school still has a “UC’s Center for Identity + Inclusion” complete with a student life office billed as “serv[ing] [so-called] LGBTQ students, questioning students, and allies in the College and graduate and professional schools.”
“The Fix reviewed the social media accounts of 152 American colleges and universities whose leaders committed to practicing ‘institutional neutrality,’” it adds. “At least 82 posted in some way in support of LGBT ‘pride’ through either their main accounts or related entities, such as libraries or sports teams.”
American institutions of higher education have long been recognized as heavily dominated by left-wing bias and historical revisionism, conditioning students to reject religion, traditional morality, and free markets and to view America as a uniquely malignant force in the world, a society systemically rigged against the poor and minority groups, with identity-based grievances forming the foundation of so-called “social justice” and “intersectional” approaches to education.
LGBT groups arguably enjoy the highest standing in the current social justice hierarchy. The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality, race, and other agenda items has long been a major concern in American schools and libraries, from book shelves to drag events to classroom materials to even “transitioning” troubled children without parental input.
Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas. Across the nation, controversy has also erupted in recent years over schools and libraries adopting books that expose sexual themes and activity to children, often in graphic detail and with pornographic imagery depicting sexual acts.
The toll of such an activist bent often extends well beyond politics. In 2024, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.
In response, the Trump administration has issued executive orders to deny federal funds to educational entities that indoctrinate students through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, among other executive actions to combat so-called “woke ideology” in education.