Rallying around flag could be harder at U.

Because of the Persian Gulf war, people across the country have been doing a lot of flag waving recently. But it just got a little harder to find one to wave on campus. Campus officials have begun asking students with American flags hanging outside their dormitory room windows to pull them inside, Residential Living Director Gigi Simeone said yesterday. Simeone pointed to a clause in the University's housing occupancy agreement which prohibits students from hanging anything from windows. She stressed, however, that the stipulation was not included in the agreement to be unpatriotic. "Our concerns are for safety," she said. "Our concerns are. . . that a student could fall when hanging [something] out or pulling it in, or that whatever it is they are hanging could fall and injure someone below." Simeone said she did not know why the order to remove the flags was given only two days ago, when many of the flags have been flying since the beginning of the Gulf crisis. "Probably someone looked up and saw [the flags] and realized we need to take some kind of action," she said. "There was no particular reason why it was this week as opposed to next week or last week." But not all of the students say they were asked to remove their flags. One student said that when he returned to his room in High Rise South Tuesday afternoon, the ten-foot flag which had hung outside his window for three weeks was sitting on a table in his room. Next to the flag was a note signed by West Campus authorities, which said they had removed the flag because hanging it "violated the occupancy agreement." "I would have preferred if they had called me," said the student, who asked that his name not be used. "But at least they folded it the right way." Simeone said she could not comment on that incident because she was "still trying to get information on the exact circumstances." West Campus Director Nancy McCue could not be reached for comment yesterday. Most of the students asked to remove flags are West Campus residents, but Simeone said officials were "in the process of contacting" a student in South Campus.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.