Mather House was built to suppress. The blockish and brutish tower still maintains the strict and secure attitude of its 1970 anti-protest design. But from under the mass of concrete has sprung a stem of blatant, star-spangled expression in the form of a Nicki Minaj flag. Red, white, blue, and Barbz (her fanbase’s self-dubbed moniker), the flag was hung in the common room window of Mather B-426 at the beginning of the semester and, weeks later, it still hangs. Portrayed wearing only a bra, Minaj stands sentry over the Mather courtyard, saluting students, faculty, and staff.
The decoration quickly drew the attention of House authorities, who thus sent an email on September 5th to the displayers, Yousuf Bakshi ’23, Kevin ’23, Guilliam ’23, and Izzy ’23. “I don’t want to censor anyone’s political or aesthetic expressions, but I’m concerned that members of the community will find the poster offensive, so I’m wondering if you’d be willing to take it down.” the authorities’ email stated. This request, however, was met with students’ impulse to rebel.
When Ethan Kelly ’24 arrived on campus this fall, he had no intention of displaying the Minaj flag that rose in popularity over the summer as part of a TikTok trend. As an avid fan of the artist, however, Kelly was quick to show the Mather dorm support when the controversy sprung up. “I never actually ended up buying [the flag] until I saw that Harvard had actually emailed someone to take down the flag in the first place,” Kelly said. “I bought one in solidarity.”
He saw an opportunity to turn this dispute into a movement. Together with other Harvard students who owned the flag, Kelly posted a video on September 13th of the group outside of Widener Library to his TikTok account, which had over 600,000 followers at the time. The students wrapped the flag around their shoulders, held it proudly for the camera, and saluted like Minaj herself. Riley Green’s “Different ‘Round Here” served as the soundtrack, with lyrics: “we stand for the flag and if you don’t like it we don’t care.” The choice of location was symbolic: l. “I think it’s the most iconic Harvard building,” Kelly said of Widener Library. Securitas approached Kelly’s “Barbz Rally,” rally but decided it was just fun, harmless expression and approved of further congregation. The video has garnered over 320,000 views.
Now, the students who started it all are looking to remove themselves from the conversation. “We’re taking a step back from the limelight and aren’t getting involved in any further talk on the flag,” they said in an emailed statement to the Independent. But the controversy has erupted across campus and the internet, even reaching as far as the rapper’s twitter feed itself; Nicki Minaj’s personal twitter account “liked” Yousef’s since-deleted tweet about her flag. The flag was destined to go viral given its mass-appeal.
Though the flag was his roommate’s purchase, Ryan Tierney ’24 enjoys its presence in his Leverett common room. “It kind of ties the room together as a centerpiece,” he said. “We actually got a second Minaj poster in the mail a couple days ago that went up this morning.” To Tierney, the controversy has come as a welcome surprise. “We found out [the Mather students] were getting flack for having a flag and thought it was the funniest thing ever,” he recalls. “We’re amazed that other people actually own that flag at Harvard. We thought it was such a niche thing that other people wouldn’t have it. So I saw the tweets and everything, and I thought it was pretty hilarious.”
Minaj has become an unlikely symbol of the constant tension between free speech and censorship, a tension made fiercer by the University’s concern for its public image. Despite this concern, Harvard has long recognized the importance of free expression.
Funny as he may find it, Tierney recognizes why the flag stirred opposition from the University. “Of course it’s controversial because the flag has Nicki Minaj scantily clad saluting, and it’s the American flag. So it’s a little, one could say, sacrilegious at least in terms of American nationalism and everything.”
Kelly thinks the flag has been politicized, drawing comparisons to displays of Trump and Biden flags. “Maybe it was viewed as her being a political figure,” he said. “That was the main concern of the email in the first place. But I mean, had it not been a flag with the American flag in her saluting, I don’t think there would have been any pushback on it.”
Tierney says that while the University’s concern about this flag is misguided, there are many instances where student expression deserves to be removed from the public eye. He cites the example of a whiteboard that hung in a first-floor Matthews dorm the day of the Harvard v. Brown football game, which read: “Daughters Welcome, Milfs Preferred.” “They got a lot of flack for this, I think rightfully so,” he said.
Tiereny pointed out that the specific nature of that sign made it more offensive than the Minaj flag and therefore a fair example of administrative censorship. “It’s kind of crass and it’s in the Yard with all the people coming in and out. I could see why the Harvard administration would want to take that down because it’s pretty explicitly lewd.” The higher profile of the Matthews window justifies the university’s swift censorship, Tierney said. “Harvard is trying to sell the school’s image.”
Minaj has become an unlikely symbol of the constant tension between free speech and censorship, a tension made fiercer by the University’s concern for its public image. Despite this concern, Harvard has long recognized the importance of expression. The University’s Free Speech guidelines state that “curtailment of free speech undercuts the intellectual freedom that defines our purpose. It also deprives some individuals of the right to express unpopular views and others of the right to listen to unpopular views.” However, the same document goes on to acknowledge that free speech is never quite that simple. “There is often ambiguity about where the line should be drawn in terms of the rights of speakers, protesters, and audience,” it states. Thus, there is a difference between free expression that should be protected and offensive messages that should be removed.
Some see Minaj as a hero, others a horror, and how the PG-13 pennant should be judged still remains controversial and unsettled. How to judge a symbol and deem whether it belongs in the panorama of Harvard could perhaps be answered by Justice Stewart’s opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, in which he said he can’t define pornography, but “I know it when I see it.” When the Harvard administration saw the Minaj flag, they saw something that some people could find offensive and should be moved. When Tierney saw it in his common room, he had the opposite reaction. In contrast to the Matthews whiteboard, “The Nicki Minaj flag is harmless,” Tierney said. “Different things. Way different.”
McGavock Cooper ’24 (mcgavockcooper@college.harvard.edu) and Declan Buckley ’24 (declanbuckley@college.harvard.edu) are comping the Indy.