By Brooke Coupal
Editor-In-Chief
Only a week after the “Flags of Love” were removed from the McQuade Library window, the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) gathered 890 more flags to be hung back up. This was over triple the amount that they had originally gathered before someone entered the library and removed them.
Upon realizing that the original flags were missing, Vice President of GSA Megan DesAutels went to the librarian asking what had happened. From there the police were contacted and an investigation was put into place to find the suspect behind this act. According to Executive Vice President Jeffrey Doggett, “The police have concluded that investigation, and they identified a student. That student has gone through the student conduct process.”
When GSA originally reported this incident to The Beacon, they called the act was a “hate crime.”
“We did, as an institution, review this first as a potential hate crime. It is through the process that we determined it was not. That was actually done not only with the Merrimack Police, but also outside advice. We did not make that decision alone, and we did not make that decision lightly,” said Doggett.
The GSA executive board stated that they had received a ton of support from different members of campus following this incident including the Office of Student Engagement, the Merrimack College Police Department, the librarians, President Christopher Hopey, and Father Ray Dlugos.
“Being able to get support from so many different groups shows the amount of positivity that we have on this campus,” said Sabrina Hartnett.
