The Citadel’s Board Votes to Move Confederate Naval Flag From Chapel

The Board of Visitors of the Citadel, the public military college in South Carolina, on Tuesday voted to remove a Confederate naval flag from the campus’s Summerall Chapel, as scrutiny of Confederate symbols has intensified nationwide following a mass shooting last week in a black church in Charleston, S.C.

The flag, known as a Confederate Naval Jack, was presented to the college’s president in 1939 and is one of 57 flags that hang in the interior of the chapel. Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa, the Citadel’s president, said in a written statement that the board had voted 9 to 3 to move the flag from the chapel “to an appropriate location on campus.”

He said the move would require the South Carolina Legislature to amend a 2000 law known as the Heritage Act, which paved the way for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from its position atop the state capitol’s dome and which allowed for the flag to be flown as part of a memorial on the statehouse grounds. The State, a newspaper in Columbia, S.C., reported that legislators had voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to debate removing the battle flag from the statehouse grounds.

In his statement, General Rosa said he and the Citadel’s Board of Visitors “believe now is the right time to move the flag from a place of worship to an appropriate location.”

“We pride ourselves on our core values of honor, duty, and respect,” he said. “Moving the Naval Jack to another location is consistent with these values and is a model to all of the principled leadership we seek to instill in our cadets and students. It also promotes unity on our campus, in our community, and across our state during this time of healing.”