The University of Mississippi Associated Student Body Senate (ASB) voted in favor of a resolution to remove the Miss. State Flag from campus because of its Confederate emblem.
According to The Associated Press, the resolution passed 33-15, with one senator not voting, and will now advance to university administrators for the final say. Since the racially charged church shooting in Charleston, S.C., southern states have grappled with movements to remove the Confederate emblem from public places.
South Carolina removed the Confederate Flag from the state capitol, but the Confederate emblem is incorporated with the state flag. While Mississippi cannot easily distance itself from the Confederacy, the Ole Miss ASB resolution is a sign the school wants to do so, if only for its own campus.
"The Confederate emblem that's on the state flag is deeply connected and rooted in ideas of white supremacy and racial oppression, and that symbol has no place on our campus," Allen Coon, ASB senator who wrote the resolution, told The Associated Press after the vote. "If we claim to respect the dignity of each person, that flag cannot fly on our campus."
Co-authoring the resolution with Allen was Ole Miss' NAACP chapter, National Pan-Hellenic Chapter, and UM Pride Network, The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported. The Ole Miss NAACP chapter held a rally on campus ahead of the resolution vote, which was also attended by the International Keystone Knights, a Klu Klux Klan affiliate, and the League of the South.
"There should not be a debate," ASB Sen. Andrew Soper told The Ledger. "This a state issue, not a university issue."
Rod Bridges, ASB President, previously told the newspaper he would approve the resolution if it passed and expressed his approval in a statement issued after the vote.
"This is the first step of many," student senator Coon told The Washington Post. "Our campus rife with Confederate iconography. We intend to address these symbols in the coming months."
