Today and in the coming weeks, Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin is raising the progressive pride flag, i.e. the rainbow flag, which also includes tin* and BIPOcs. In doing so, we are sending a clear and visible signal for diversity and the protection of queer people and a clear signal against queer hostility, exclusion and the right-wing vibe shift in our society.
In times when queer people are attacked at CSDs, right-wing movements openly agitate against gender and sexual diversity and even symbolic gestures, such as raising the rainbow flag on the Reichstag building, are banned by the highest political authorities, a stance is needed more than ever.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner has decided that the rainbow flag may no longer fly at the Reichstag on the day of the big Berlin CSD. This was supported by Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who declared that the Bundestag is "not a circus tent". A statement that not only marginalizes the political seriousness of visibility, but also implicitly devalues our queer realities as a spectacle. In times of increasing social polarization, this policy is not neutral, but sends a signal of exclusion.
That is why we at Alice Salomon University strongly disagree with this backward-looking attempt at interpretation.
Flag-raising ceremonies are not a decoration. They are part of democratic visibility policy. If the state stands up for human rights, then it must do so visibly. This applies in particular to those groups that continue to be affected by structural discrimination, violence and political repression.
Universities also have a special responsibility here: they are spaces for thought, criticism and social shaping. They have the task of protecting gender and sexual diversity and promoting democratic values, even and especially when these come under pressure.
As a university committed to social justice and anti-discrimination, we are clearly committed to diversity. For visibility. For an open society.
That is why the rainbow flag is flying at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences from today. It flies for human dignity, for recognition and against any attempt to make diversity invisible.
