The student body government at UC Irvine voted to remove all flags from a shared lobby space. Two days later, an executive branch of the student government body decided to strike down the decision with a veto.
Michael Conroy / AP
Reza Zomorrodian, student body president, said an American flag that used to hang in one of the university's lobbies, would be back on display by Monday.
The decision by the student government generated a strong reaction online after all flags were banned from the lobby.
The response included local politicians and state senators, including one who proposed a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit state-funded universities from banning the flag.
Zomorrodian said the entire issue began about five weeks ago when a U.S. flag was hung in a lobby used mainly by student government representatives.
No other flags were hung there before, but someone repeatedly took the flag down and left it folded on his desk after multiple efforts to leave it hanging in the lobby, he said.
"It was like a tug of war," he told Buzzfeed News.
The issue came to a head this week when one of the student representatives introduced a motion to ban all flags, which was passed Thursday but was short-lived with Saturday's veto.
Zomorrodian, who said he opposed the flag ban, said the online response, and that from the surrounding community, was so great some of the students who supported the measure cancelled their social media accounts.
Efforts to reach the author of the motion, Matthew Guevara, were unsuccessful.
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