Classroom Flag Desecration Lacks Value

Dear Editor:

On April 10, professor Richard Biernacki brought an American flag to his Sociology 20 class and desecrated it in an attempt to prove to his students that people hold profound attachments to symbols. Biernacki cut the flag up with a knife and then smeared the flag with mud. Sadly, these actions were an improvement from last year, when he disgustingly used dog excrement in place of mud.

Looking back to when I started class this year, I naively believed in the good in people and so did not fear a recurrence of this demonstration. After the discussion brought on by Biernacki’s demonstration last year, in which many of his students, often nearly silenced by tears, told Biernacki how much his experiment had hurt them, I could not believe Biernacki would have the heartlessness to cause a new batch of students such anguish. My belief in Biernacki’s natural goodness was callously disproved.

Stunningly, Biernacki had the nerve to say repeatedly that he did not intend to hurt people, and he was simply trying to prove a point. These are contradictory statements. If he destroyed the flag and no one felt pain, his point would remain unproven. If no one were offended or hurt by Biernacki’s demonstration, then the entire demonstration would be pointless. Biernacki’s intention, whether he likes to admit it or not, is to inflict pain on his students.

I stood up in class and told Biernacki to stop because I thought there was a way to make the point in a less offensive way. I was greeted with major opposition from the class. Since the majority of the class did not feel as I did, if Biernacki truly had the intention of proving a point about symbolism, he should have come up with a symbol to desecrate that would elicit a negative reaction from everyone.

During the discussion following Biernacki’s demonstration this year, one woman stated that she felt his actions were useful in that they proved the values for which the flag stands. Her point was that Biernacki, as an American, is free to do whatever he wishes to the flag. What she forgot to mention is vitally important. The rights we hold as Americans come with the responsibility to use them wisely. As has been quoted many times, “Just because you can does not mean you should.” Biernacki has the right to do whatever he wants to the flag, but that does not make whatever he does to the flag right. Similarly, Biernacki can cause his students pain and suffering, but does that mean that he should?

Though Biernacki stated that it was hard for him to do this demonstration, he does not have the attachment to the flag that he was supposedly attempting to portray. If he had that attachment, the kind that comes from spending sleepless nights worrying about a little brother fighting half a world away, or from opening the door to your house and hearing the dreaded words, “Your son died for his country,” he would not have been able to desecrate the flag. I have two people that I love in the military right now, and what Biernacki did felt like a sucker punch to the gut for me.

Biernacki has his own lesson to learn. He needs to learn compassion and empathy, and to be mature enough to take other people’s feelings into consideration when he acts. Hopefully, this letter will be more effective at teaching than he is.

— Danielle Adam

Thurgood Marshall College Junior