In past years the Air Force ROTC raised the Pan-African flag in front of Scholes Hall every morning during the month of February to celebrate Black History Month, but this year ROTC stopped raising the flag before the end of February, according to officials at African American Student Services (AASS).
In a ceremony at the beginning of Black History Month AASS hosts a flag-raising ceremony.
Christina Foster, a work-study employee at AASS, said she was under the impression that ROTC would raise the Pan-African flag every day as it had in years past, but she said within a week, ROTC stopped raising the flag and didn’t let AASS know.
“I was the organizer this year of the flag-raising ceremony, and I helped with it in previous years and we’ve never had this problem before,” she said. “There’s never been an issue where we couldn’t raise the flag.”
Foster said she and others at AASS were told by ROTC and Tim Gutierrez, associate vice president of Student Services, that it was against ROTC policy to raise and take down the flag every day.
Gutierrez said ROTC wanted to raise the flag, but is prevented by rules in the UNM flag protocol. According to the protocol, “United States military personnel in uniform or in civilian clothing, acting in an official capacity, will not carry flags of veterans groups or other non-military organizations.”
Gutierrez said the flag was raised in previous years under commanders who were unaware of the protocol. He said the commander ROTC rotates out every three years.
“They probably have different commanders who come from different areas and are more aware of the codes,” he said.
Gutierrez said ROTC members believed they would be able to raise the flag as long as they were in civilian clothing.
“They were looking at being involved out of uniform, but that’s when they came, showed me the code, and said they can’t do that, either,” he said.
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