The University of Mississippi’s student government voted to remove the state flag, which bears a confederate symbol, from the school’s campus.
CNN noted that on Tuesday evening, 33 student senators voted in favor of a resolution asking that Ole Miss remove the flag, while 15 opposed the idea and one abstained it.
A state flag currently flies on campus near a monument honoring Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
The school has made some progress in trying to distance itself from confederacy over the past several years.
The university’s sports teams are called the Rebels and the mascot used to be Colonel Reb. However, in 2003, the colonel was discontinued from participation in athletic events and later replaced with new mascot Rebel Black Bear. And in 1997, the student government voted on a resolution asking that its fans stop waving the Confederate battle flag at all sporting events. In response the school banned bringing stick flags to games.
The outcry has been fueled more than ever now after a 21-year-old white man admitted to fatally shooting nine black parishioners during a bible study at a church in Charleston, South Carolina last June.
The suspect posed with the state’s Confederate battle flag and other Confederate imagery on his social media accounts. As we previously reported, after the massacre, South Carolina lawmakers had the flag removed from statehouse grounds.