‘Offensive’: Federal agency bureaucrats triggered by colleague’s display of certain flag
A flag controversial to some caused more than a little angst at the U.S. Department of Education when an employee hung it outside his office in Washington, D.C.
According to USA Today, a labor union representative spied the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag displayed in a hallway at the agency President Trump is working to close down.
While the flag dates to the nation’s founding era, because some protesters at the Jan. 6 riot carried it, many have ascribed malevolent intent among those who display it.
The paper quotes the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in asserting that the flag “has been adopted primarily by evangelical Christian nationalist groups,” as well as the Proud Boys and certain neo-Nazi groups.
According to the report, those triggered by the flag’s presence in an executive branch office building are raising concerns about the separation of church of state.
Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union for Education Department workers nationwide, said in a statement that the agency “has no place for symbols that were carried by insurrectionists.”
“Since January, hardworking public servants at the U.S. Department of Education have been subjected to threats, harassment, and sustained demoralization,” she said. “Now, they are being asked to work in an environment where a senior leader is prominently displaying an offensive flag – one that, regardless of its origins in the American Revolution, has come to represent intolerance, hatred, and extremism.”
In response, Madi Biedermann, the deputy assistant secretary for communications, told USA Today, “As usual, union members are more concerned about imagined grievances and silly political fights than the abysmal test scores of our nation’s students.”
The paper claims the flag was outside the office of Murray Bessette, the principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development.
Before joining the Trump administration, Bessette previously oversaw academic programs at the Alexander Hamilton Society, a nonprofit that prepares young people for careers in foreign policy and national security. Earlier in his career, he worked at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Bessette has a doctorate in political science from Claremont Graduate University.
In 2023, Speaker Mike Johnson raised more than a few eyebrows after placing the same flag outside his Capitol Hill office. At the time, Rolling Stone warned, “there’s a flag hanging outside his office that leads into a universe of right-wing religious extremism as unknown to most Americans as Johnson was before he ascended to the speakership.”
WND columnist Michael Brown wrote in response, tongue in cheek, “America, beware! Your beloved country is about to be turned into a religious state.”
In 2024, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito received similar flak after an Appeal to Heaven flag was spotted flapping in the wind at his beach house.
Evil Mike Johnson and the nefarious Christian takeover of America