The War on Nylon: Dartmouth to Remove Flags from Student Housing

One cannot walk more than a few feet on the icy pathways of Dartmouth College without coming across one of the many flags and symbols that dormitories and Greek houses choose to fly from their balconies and windows. The display of flags as a means to express solidarity surged on Dartmouth’s campus in the wake of the events of October 7 in Israel, as the campus saw an array of Palestine and Israel flags–representing the deep divide among the undergraduate population on the subject. However, the flag-ridden days of Dartmouth appear to be coming to an end, as the men and women of Safety and Security have declared a “war on nylon” to remove the flag displays that litter the campus.

The College cited section 715 of the Hanover Zoning ordinance as their rationale for the removal of flags across campus. Most of the aforementioned Section 715, admittedly, appears to be dedicated to the enforcement of street signs. However, Section 715.6 does make mention to the display of banners, reading as follows:

 “In the I district, institutional building owners are permitted to install, in addition to signs otherwise permitted, banners on private property. Banners may be affixed to standards, lamp posts, or buildings and may be posted throughout the year for up to 12 weeks at a time for each installation at each location. Not more than three banners may be posted at one time on any building facade visible from a public street. Banners shall not exceed 150 square feet in area on each of two sides. These signs may be erected without a zoning permit.”

From a technical point of view, one could argue that these guidelines do, in fact, constitute valid reasoning for the removal of flags across campus. Such a perspective of the ordinance would require that one views the policy surrounding banners to apply equally to flags. If one looks at Dartmouth’s official website they do appear to consider the two equal to each other, for Dartmouth echoes the guidelines established in the housing ordinance in the section discussing the policy for displaying flags on campus buildings. 

Dartmouth emphasized that the enforcement of this rule does not, in fact, prohibit students from choosing to display flags from inside their windows so long as the flag does not hang on the exterior of the building itself. There is an obvious difference in visibility between a flag hung from the inside of a dormitory and from the outside of a window; moreover, hanging flags to the point of visibility from the inside of dorms would require blocked view to the outside on part of the dormitory residents. In other words, students will lose access to the view from their window if they wish to make their flags completely visible to those outside. 

Regardless of whether or not Dartmouth is believed to be right barring the ridiculous bureaucratic nature of such a regulation (especially in a state which touts “Live Free or Die” as its motto) this provision of the Hanover Zoning Ordinance was first added in 2015. Dartmouth has had nearly ten years to commence the removal of these flags, yet had made no previous effort to do so. It stands to reason that the surge in students choosing to display flags amid the Israel-Hamas war has given sufficient cause for Dartmouth to enforce such a rule. Administration officials suggested that the policy has, in fact, been enforced since Section 715 of the Hanover Zoning Ordinance was adopted, however, few students reported interactions with Safety and Security regarding their flags until very recently.

Safety and Security’s chosen method of enforcement of this policy appears to vary on a case-to-case basis. For example, some students reported that SNS chose to commence their mission in secret, personally dismantling the flags without first requesting that students do so of their own accord. Conversely, some students report that they were instead first approached with an amicable request from SNS for the students to remove the flags themselves. Reports from students suggest that many flags were taken down while most of the undergraduate student body was off campus during spring break.

Regardless of the lack of consistency in how SNS has removed the flags, there does—to the credit of the Dartmouth administration—appear to be virtually no discrepancy in treatment between different types of flags. Both flags of a political and non-political nature have been subject to this recent resurgence in enforcement of what is an admittedly esoteric rule. 

In any case, such an action speaks rather poorly for the state of political discourse on campus. Dartmouth has been praised far and wide by prestigious media outlets for its handling of high tension among students amid the events of October 7. To the college’s credit, it has handled discourse surrounding the war in Gaza remarkably better than its peer institutions. Still, Dartmouth is responsible for maintaining that level of discourse well into the future, and the forced dismantlement of forms of expression such as flags only achieve the opposite..