Gonville and Caius has proposed a change its Student Flag Day Policy which would ban students voting on the flying of national flags. 

If implemented, the updated Flag Policy would prevent students from voting on the flying of “any national or territorial flags from the College flagpole”.

An email sent by the GCSU and MCR Presidents to Caius students revealed that “in light of the outcomes of the Flag Days vote this year, there was discussion and deliberation at College Council which directed that the Flag Policy be revisited in its entirety.”

The College Council also directed that a Working Group should be formed, comprising the GCSU President, MCR President, Senior Tutor, and Fellows.

The email from the GCSU and MCR Presidents contained an attachment titled “College Council Working Group Proposal on Student Flag Day Policy”.

According to this document, students would no longer be able to vote on the flying of national or territorial flags under the new policy. However, they would be able to vote on the flying of the Progress Pride flag on the first day of LGBT+ History Month (February) and first day of LGBT+ Pride Month (June). Both flags would require the approval of a third of current students, as is the case for student-approved flags under the current rules.

If the flying of a student-voted flag were to clash with the flying of the College Flag, the College Flag would take precedence, the proposal states. If this were to happen, the flying of the student-approved flag would be moved to another suitable date.

Provided it is not the flag of a nation or territory, a proposal to fly a new flag would require a petition with 100 signatures from current Caius students. This is the same number of signatures needed to make amendments to the GCSU constitution. The nomination threshold for flags had previously been much lower, requiring the support of 16 students. This petition would then trigger an open meeting, where a simple majority in favour would allow the proposed flag to be put to a vote among the student body, subject to the approval of the College Council.

The proposal put forward by the College Council would limit students to proposing just one new flag – a change from the current rule that allows proposals for as many flags as meet the nomination threshold.

Student Flag Days would be limited to no more than six per academic year, and a proposed flag would have to be agreed by the GCSU, MCR, and College Council before week six of Michaelmas.

The new proposal would continue to require that the student body source any flags themselves – something which posed an issue last academic year when students failed to provide an Irish flag to be flown after voting in favour of flying it for St Patrick’s Day. This meant that the student-approved flag could not be flown.

An open meeting about the College Council Working Group’s Flag Policy proposal is due to take place on Wednesday 29 January. After the meeting, there will be an anonymous ballot in which attendees will be able to vote on the proposal. The result of the vote will then “be fed back to the Working Group,” the email explains.

The College came under significant criticism in 2022 after taking down the Progress Pride flag two days into LGBT+ History Month. The College later backtracked on this decision, after an open letter from the GCSU was signed by hundreds of students and staff, including the Senior Tutor.

The College also faced scrutiny for not flying the Pride flag in 2023, after it did not receive the necessary number of votes to meet the minimum threshold.

Last Easter, the College Council adopted the policy that flags of territories in active conflict zones could not be flown. This comes in response to previous difficulties getting the fellowship to approve flags that were not seen as ‘politically neutral’ enough.

In the most recent vote about Student Flag Days, several flags were approved, including the Welsh and Tibetan flags. The Transgender Pride flag fell four votes short of the threshold, though students did vote to fly the Progress Pride flag.

A Gonville & Caius College spokesperson said: “We do not comment on any ongoing review of policy.”

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