The University of Chicago just told the rainbow flag to take a hike — right as Pride Month kicked off on June 1st. The university's Laboratory Schools announced they will no longer fly the LGBTQ+ pride flag from the courtyard flagpole, citing institutional neutrality under the Kalven Committee report. And the activist class is absolutely losing its mind.
Interim Director Ethan Bueno de Mesquita broke the news in an email to the Lab Schools community, explaining that anything flying from a university flagpole — other than the American flag and possibly Chicago or Illinois flags — constitutes institutional speech. "I think the university saying that an observer who sees something flying from a flagpole and understands that to be a statement of the institution is a reasonable interpretation," Bueno de Mesquita told The College Fix. The pride flag had been raised in Blaine Courtyard every June since 2022. Four years of rainbow real estate — gone.
Bueno de Mesquita was careful to add that "the full membership of LGBTQ+ people in the Lab community is not a contested issue. It is a core value." In other words: we respect everyone, we're just not turning our flagpole into a billboard. Seems reasonable to roughly 200 million Americans.
Naturally, the University of Chicago's American Association of University Professors chapter threw a fit. Their response? "You see the display of even basic symbols expressing the dignity of our students would be an unacceptable political stance." Translation: how dare you treat our flag the same as every other political flag. The entitlement is staggering.
But here's the thing we all need to understand — this isn't happening in a vacuum. The University of Chicago has a longstanding practice that only the American flag flies from university flagpoles. The Lab Schools had been making an exception since 2022. Now that exception is over. Bueno de Mesquita's decision aligns the school with the university's broader neutrality policy, which was reinforced just last month. The Kalven Committee report — UChicago's legendary 1967 framework for keeping the institution out of political advocacy — is actually being enforced. Wild concept.
The story was first reported by the U-High Midway, the Laboratory High School's own student newspaper, as reported by Blaze News. So the kids broke the news before the grown-ups could spin it.
Connor Murnane, a spokesperson for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, tried to thread the needle, telling The College Fix that "a simple 'Happy Pride Month' message — much like a 'Happy Fourth of July' post — doesn't inherently violate a university's commitment to neutrality." Fair point, Connor. But a flag on a flagpole is a different animal than a social media post, and UChicago clearly agrees.
Meanwhile, John Ritchie, director of TFP Student Action, didn't mince words. "Pride Month is not a neutral issue but rather part of a broader cultural revolution aimed at overturning Christian morality," Ritchie said. That's the kind of clarity we need more of in this conversation.
Here's the bigger picture that should have every conservative grinning this morning. The College Fix reviewed 152 American colleges and universities in June 2025 and found that 82 of them — 54% — posted Pride Month support. That means nearly half already weren't playing along. Now one of the biggest names in American higher education has officially joined the "no thanks" column. That's not a trend. That's a tidal wave.
The left had their rainbow flag planted on every building, every campus, every corporate lobby for years. They thought it was permanent. They thought the culture war was over and they'd won.
They thought wrong. Happy Pride Month, everybody.
