When they first saw the red X painted over the likeness of the transgender flag on The Rock Jan. 6, sixth-year English Ph.D. candidate Smith Yarberry said they “immediately” stopped walking.
“Something felt really off, and that visual cue, especially on a memorial for a trans student, just felt like something was wrong up there,” Yarberry said.
The X was visible for several days until a small group of students and faculty, including Yarberry, decided to paint over it Thursday.
Prior to the red X appearing, the Northwestern landmark had been painted to the likeness of the trans flag in honor of a trans NU student who passed away in May.
The red X had chevrons on the lines, and it was surrounded by a white box with a red outline that roughly followed the shape of The Rock. Red words painted on the low wall in front of The Rock read “CHARLES THE BOLD DUKE OF BURGUNDY 10 NOV 1433 — 5 JAN 1477.”
Concerned students and faculty worked together over email chains in the following days to research the markings and allusion to the duke of Burgundy. Others reached out to Student Affairs separately to notify the University about the symbol.
They ultimately stumbled upon the Cross of Burgundy, a flag that has a similar chevroned X and is a centuries-old symbol for conservative, traditionalist movements in Spain, Yarberry said. It was adopted by a Spanish pro-fascist group in the 20th century.
“It’s one thing to go repaint the entire rock white with a red (symbol) and take away the trans memorial,” Yarberry said. “But to use the trans memorial as the backdrop for a symbol associated with Nazism and fascist ideologies, that is a very political statement.”
Yarberry said they first reached out to the University on Jan. 6 to ask about the X. After they connected the dots to the Cross of Burgundy on Jan. 7, they filed a bias and hate report form with NU Student Affairs.
Yarberry said they heard nothing from the University until Thursday evening when they received an email from Assistant Vice President of Campus Inclusion and Community Tabitha Wiggins and Assistant Vice President for Wellness and Dean of Students Mona Dugo.
In the email obtained by The Daily, Wiggins and Dugo wrote that while a group of administrators was determining what to do about the red symbol, they learned that someone had already painted over it.
“The University does not review, approve, or remove paintings (on The Rock) based on viewpoint,” the two administrators wrote. “Unless there is an immediate threat, explicit harassment, or prohibited vulgarity, the University does not intervene or paint over its content. We recognize that this can feel difficult at times.”
Wiggins and Dugo wrote that they read the reports and acknowledged this is a “painful” time for transgender students. They encouraged students to repaint The Rock if they disagreed with a message displayed on it.
Adam Syvertsen (Doctorate ’24), a postdoctoral fellow in humanities program administration at the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, specializes in 19th century history. He said he immediately made the connection between the X and the Cross of Burgundy.
While he personally disagrees with the message, Syvertsen said he was especially concerned that it overlaid the trans flag — and disappointed that the University did not respond given the context.
“The ask is not (for the University) to take punitive action towards, or turn this into some kind of trial or attempt to find the student responsible,” Syvertsen said. “The ask is to protect Northwestern’s queer community, right? So I struggle with (NU) not wanting to intervene because this seemed to me so apparently targeted in the manner in which it was done.”
Yarberry, Syvertsen and Kaplan Program Assistant Leon Hedstrom told The Daily that while they were “restoring” The Rock, a student approached them and took responsibility for painting the cross.
They said the student mostly defended the decision as solely expressing interest in the duke of Burgundy. The person did not identify themself.
“The context of the deployment of these terms matters,” Syvertsen said. “Whether or not the student intended this to be offensive, it is offensive, right? Simply because this symbol has meanings that they may or may not have been aware of — meanings that are very hostile to queer students.”
When asked about the symbol and NU’s policies for deciding if something painted on The Rock is expression or harassment, a University spokesperson copied the email Wiggins and Dugo sent to students like Yarberry who had contacted Student Affairs or filed a bias report form.
Faculty members and students in LGBTQ+ communities reached out to Spanish and Portuguese Prof. Miguel Caballero, who specializes in Iberian Studies and is originally from Spain, to ask about the history of the symbol.
Caballero said the Cross of Burgundy is commonly used at Spanish alt-right protests and by “reactionary” groups. The flag has been associated with several movements over the last several centuries, which have advocated for a return to traditionalist values.
“I wasn’t surprised to see it against the trans flag, because in Spain, the people that use that flag are definitely not friendly at all with LGBTQ anything,” Caballero, who identifies as queer, said. “But what was surprising to me was to see it here, in the U.S.”
The flag first adopted a conservative ideology in the 19th century to advocate for a new king to succeed the throne instead of the heir, who was a woman, according to Syvertsen.
Caballero said the Carlists, a pro-fascist group, adopted the Cross of Burgundy in the following century for their conservative advocacy during the Spanish Civil War.
Caballero added that it is now common in Spain for anti-LGBTQ+ groups to cover flags of queer communities with the Spanish flag. For him, painting the cross over the transgender flag on The Rock mirrored this practice.
Second-year English graduate student Annie Howard works with Yarberry at the Workshop in Trans Studies. She said it was “especially disappointing and painful” to see an alleged hate symbol painted over a memorial to a trans student. The obscure reference to a Spanish movement also gives the painter an opportunity to deflect from the implications of the cross, according to Howard.
However, they added that it was not surprising to see such a symbol on campus. Students have previously told The Daily they are concerned about whether the University supports members of LGBTQ+ communities, especially after the Nov. 28 deal with the federal administration restricted transgender care options and gender definitions on campus.
“It’s very degrading and cruel, and just kind of shows the natural consequences of these top-down decisions that make us more vulnerable, and then it just sort of emboldens this kind of cruel behavior,” Howard said.
Yarberry sent an email to hundreds of students and faculty about the symbol painted on The Rock, and they posted about it to their personal Instagram Monday.
They said many students and faculty have responded in support of queer communities at NU after learning more about the symbol painted over the memorial displayed at The Rock — and the lack of University action.
“It’s a really confusing message, and that is what is also leading to that feeling of unsafety — is not having clarity with actually whether or not the University is supporting their trans students,” Yarberry said.
Nineth Kanieski Koso contributed reporting.
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