Here at Cambridge, the months easily blend into each other, whilst we grapple with the intense weekly cycle of deadlines and supervisions. One of the only things that ever reminds me that January has tipped over into February is the bright rainbow out of the corner of my eye as I walk past the Mathematical Bridge, or glance up at my College’s front gate. As I wrote in last month’s print edition (21/02), the Progress Pride flag serves as a reassuringly colourful presence on a dreary winter morning. They remind me that there are active spaces, like those in colleges, which are carved out for the queer pride.

Now that LGBTQ+ History Month has come to an end, we must carry on the acknowledgement of queer history ourselves, until June rolls around. Colleges in particular must remember to acknowledge, celebrate, and protect marginalised communities, once the flags come down again.

Others are freely able to express their disagreement. Individuals have certainly done so, when commenting under a Facebook post of Selwyn College’s JCR officers raising the Pride flag at the start of February, as Varsity reported. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.

The trolls’ comments came straight out of the far-right homophobe’s playbook. One wrote that they were “glad they are banning this ideology in the USA”. Another claimed that the College was “pandering to neo-Marxist authoritarianism”. A further comment included an image of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, part of a supposed Biblical justification for homophobia.

“Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences”

These exact practices like LGBTQ+ History Month and flying the Pride flag are designed to try and combat such hateful rhetoric. Students at all colleges should not feel like they have to compromise on any of them because strangers on the Internet decided to make that hateful rhetoric public.

So, offensive and laughably inaccurate comments should be condemned when they make members of these spaces uncomfortable and undermine commitment to the protection of LGBTQ+ individuals. Without responding, Selwyn has not done justice to the safe and celebratory space that it should be cultivating. Colleges and universities have a special, tangible welfare responsibility to their students, beyond an abstract commitment to freedom of speech.

“Colleges and universities have a special, tangible welfare responsibility to their students, beyond an abstract commitment to freedom of speech”

I understand that they might not want to be seen to legitimise those comments and the particularly vitriolic attacks often present on social media. However, an official response would avoid stooping down to their level, while re-asserting their commitment to LGBTQ+ rights. Otherwise, flying the flag becomes a superficial gesture, one that you can post to Facebook and forget about when serious issues arise, while displaying the flag on top of college buildings for all to see.

The conversation around flags has certainly been in the air this past year. From Selwyn’s Pride flag this February, to Homerton’s temporary removal of Palestinian flags last November, to a campaign against a flag ban in Newnham in May, and Caius’ overly complicated flag rules being changed last month too, these same colourful reminders are being increasingly threatened. If strangers on the Internet want to publicly assert their views, thinking there will be no consequences, then we reserve the right to publicly fly our flags, under that same freedom of expression.

Yet, as I have argued, all this public talk only scratches the surface of the real problems that queer and other marginalised people are facing, here in Cambridge and beyond. Colleges cannot solve those in a month. But what they can do, then and in the months in between, is cultivate a truly safe environment, for all of its members. Otherwise, my February and June walks to lectures will bear only the signs of a dangerous superficiality.

But anyway, what do I know, I’m just a “neo-Marxist authoritarian” forcing my “ideology” down your throats.

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