Officials from Connecticut’s Trinity College removed two students’ patriotic flags, one the “Blue, Green, Red Line” flag, with the lines representing police, military, and first responders, and the other an American flag with the Gadsden snake on it. Why were they taken down? Because they were “offensive.” You can’t make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter and trans pride flags on nearby buildings were left alone.

The Gadsden flag, also known as the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, was created during the American Revolution and is thought by some to be the first official flag of the Marines.

Ooh, super offensive! Especially at an American college.

The two male students, Finn McCole and Lucas Turco, videotaped the flags’ removal at the Hartford-area school and posted the results to TikTok. You can see the administrator take down the flags, despite their protestations and with no real explanation as to why except that they would need to “talk to the dean.” Watch:

.@TrinityCollege forcibly removed a student’s “don’t tread on me” American Flag and a red, blue, and green line flag. Meanwhile pride flags are allowed to stay hanging. pic.twitter.com/AG892oaRyv

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 31, 2022

“I bought these, you’re not taking my property, this is stealing,” says one of the young men. “The college does not have the right to take my flags.” She wasn’t budging, though, and tried to walk away with his possessions before he finally retrieved them from her. “This is mine, and that was ridiculous,” he said as he marched away from the confrontation.

Fox News host Jesse Watters, who attended Trinity, caught wind of the affair and had the two on his show Thursday:

When the students finally got an explanation from the institution, they were told the images might upset the delicate sensibilities of some “snowflake weepies” on campus. Well, those are my words; here’s what they were actually told:

“They said that the reason they were taken down was that some people viewed the flags as offensive and I think it’s an absolute shame that those flags can be offensive,” Turco told Watters.

He also pointed out they were just expressing their beliefs:

They had LGBTQ flags, they had transgender flags, BLM flags, which we have no problem with any of those flags hanging.

We believe everyone has the right to their opinion and their own beliefs, and that everyone should be able to put their flags up and so me and Finn thought: “Why don’t we put up some flags we personally believe in?”

McCole meanwhile took to Instagram to explain his frustration with the obvious double standard:

You may agree or disagree with [our] ideologies, and that’s totally fine, but we feel that we should have an opportunity to express them under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.

When we asked for clarification on the grounds of their removal, we were told that no flags were to be hung on campus. Despite this, no one else who has a flag hung on campus has been told of this rule, and obviously no one else has had their flags forcibly removed in this fashion.

Hmm, this looks like a flag to me:

Today kicks off Ally Week at #TrinColl! 🏳️‍🌈

Learn more: https://t.co/p0CDvOj09N#TrinProud 💙💛 #TogetherWeTrin#AskMeWhyIAlly pic.twitter.com/9cBdQRYq28

— Trinity College (@TrinityCollege) October 17, 2022

As word spread about the story, the dean apologized, writing in an email:

The removal of two flags outside a Trinity College student residence hall window last week has sparked a conversation across social media about freedom of speech at Trinity.

As I understand the matter, an apology was issued on the same day of the removal to the students who own the flags for the manner in which the policy was enforced. We will work harder to ensure greater awareness and consistent compliance moving forward.

Ah, yes, “we will work harder to ensure greater awareness” about the no-flag policy. Her statement misses the point entirely. The real issue here is that the school took the banners without permission—often called “stealing”—from two students while letting many others stay up.

There’s a word for that: discrimination.

For those of us who love America, it’s sad to see how colleges are leaders in anti-American thought, from what they teach indoctrinate, to who they hire, to garbage double standards like this one. Social media isn’t always a force for good, but in this case, it was: it’s my guess that if these polite young men hadn’t posted this online for the world to see, they would have never received an apology, and you, me and Jesse Watters would have never heard about it.

Good for them for not taking this lying down, and instead basically saying, “don’t tread on me.”