President Jonathan Lash should be ashamed of himself, whatever his motives, for calling the flag “a disruptive symbol’’ (“Mass. college removes American flag after flag burning, race concerns’’). He should immediately order the flag be flown on the Hampshire College campus.

What Lash did really got to me because I read about it on the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the worst public day, even more so than 9/11, in my lifetime. How many hundreds of thousands of Americans, like JFK, gave their lives for that “disruptive symbol’’?

Finally, I wonder how many staff (like President Lash), faculty, and students at Hampshire college voted for president on Nov. 8, and for whom did they vote?

Robert Rutchik

Gloucester