Confederate flag supporters criticize Miss. ballot summary

On Tuesday, 33 student senators at the university, in Oxford, Mississippi, voted in favor of getting rid of the controversial flag, while 15 opposed and one person abstained, reports CNN.

Now, the resolution will move on to senior administration at the university.

"We will not stop organizing until we have secured for ourselves and our future students a safe space where one can grow intellectually, and not feel uncomfortable navigating in an oppressive environment with such a blatant symbol of hate", Buka Okoye, president of the University of Mississippi NAACP, said.

Those who oppose the flag, which bears a Confederate emblem, consider it a relic of the past that hurts the university's efforts to be more inclusive. They gave no timetable for how quickly a decision would be made once everyone had weighed in, but student leaders who initiated the action have said they hope action will be swift. Before the attack, the professed gunman posed with the flag and allegedly embraced it as a symbol of white supremacy.

The following is an excerpt from the online petition to keep the Mississippi flag in place at the university.

Stocks has been serving as interim head of the university since June after the state's Institutions of Higher Learning board declined to renew the contract of former Chancellor Dan Jones. Jeffrey Vitter has been named the board's top candidate for the permanent job, but wouldn't begin until February if selected for the post.

In a 2001 statewide election, Mississippi voters chose to keep the flag with the Confederate emblem.

A ballot title is like a headline that's supposed to say, in 20 or fewer words, what an initiative would do.

Jackson State University, Mississippi Valley State University, and Alcorn State University have all stopped flying it. "Ole Miss Students and my fellow Mississippians, rise up and push back on political correctness and support the state flag". They say the titles, which are a description of the measures that would appear on the ballot, are confusing.