When Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that flag burning should merit severe punishment — although it is constitutionally protected free speech — he injected himself into the controversy over Hampshire College’s decision to remove its US flag after it had been set afire.
The president-elect did not directly refer to the Amherst school when he proposed that flag burners could lose their citizenship or face a year in jail. But his early-morning tweet on the matter, posted around the time Fox News was airing a segment on Hampshire, added to the debate over the school’s actions.
Trump’s message also revived a political issue that had faded from prominence in recent years.
His statement put him at odds with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Trump has praised. Scalia voted with the majority in two decisions, one in 1989 and another in 1990, declaring that flag burning was protected by the First Amendment.
David L. Hudson Jr., a lawyer who works with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, noted a line from the first of those opinions, written by Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,’’ the opinion said.
Hudson said efforts to ban flag burning through constitutional amendment crop up regularly, but efforts have ebbed in recent years. Trump may have changed that, but Hudson wondered how long the president-elect would dwell on this one.
“I never can tell when he’s just engaging in hyperbole, and when he really means something,’’ he said.
Hampshire has faced a backlash after removing the flag Nov. 18, eight days after an unknown party had set it on fire. Veterans groups have protested the decision, and it had also drawn the attention of officials including state Representative John C. Velis, who on the morning Fox News segment called Hampshire’s decision “a disgrace.’’
By afternoon, Velis, a Westfield Democrat and Army veteran, issued a statement disagreeing with Trump’s comments but standing by his criticism of the college.
“On a personal level, I find the burning of the American flag to be despicable and morally repugnant. However, the United States is a nation of laws, not feelings,’’ he said, adding that the right to burn the flag as free expression “is the law of the land and is to be respected.’’
At Hampshire, campus police are looking into the burning of the flag because the school considers it stolen campus property. Officials have said the decision not to fly the flag came amid student concerns over rising reports about acts of hate.
College president Jonathan Lash has said the removal is an effort to “enable a discussion of values among all members of our campus, not make a political statement.’’
Nicole Hernandez of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Andy Rosen can be reached at andrew.rosen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @andyrosen.
