By now you have probably seen the new flag and seal selections. Some of you may have even followed along with the commission meetings during which the flag and seal were chosen, and modified, from thousands of original submissions. The final choices can be found here, if you haven’t seen them yet: https://www3.mnhs.org/serc.
I served as a non-voting member of the commission. I wanted to share my experience and some observations with you.
Let me begin by saying that last session I voted against commissioning a new flag and seal. I believed then, as I do now, that the push to change the flag has been based on a false narrative that the flag is racist or is not a well-designed flag.
The design of the seal when initially selected contained an attractive design that was generally quite popular with Minnesotans. It contained a loon on a lake, trees, and a tuft of grain. As the commission moved to adopt it, the commission waded into divisiveness by removing the state motto (L’etoile du Nord) and the year of statehood (1858) from the seal design. The words in the Dakota language, “Mni Sota Makoce,” were added in place of the state motto. The year 1858 was removed because the commission believed it represented land cessation treaties.
The flag selection process was severely constrained by the commission’s strict adherence to limiting the flag design limitations presented to them by active members of the vexillological society. This prevented them from entertaining the idea that I heard many times from Minnesotans, to use the seal design on the flag. We were also confounded by time, contributing to one flag finalist that bore a striking resemblance to the flag of Somalian state.
These were controversial decisions that did not give me confidence in the outcome. Meetings had felt like the point of redesigning Minnesota’s state symbols was not a way to bring people together but instead to settle old scores. That motivation is intrinsically wrong.
Thankfully, the commission did eventually do the right thing with the flag: it dropped the controversial design.
The fundamental problems with the seal design remain. The last minute changes, unfortunately, effectively made it effectively a Dakota seal. Whether you support that or not, the design is now clearly in violation of state law: “Symbols, emblems, or likenesses that represent only a single community or person, regardless of whether real or stylized, may not be included in the final design.” I expect there will be significant challenges to the design.
Our state symbols are supposed to unite us. Even though I was very skeptical of the project, I have been willing to support a flag and a seal that got a positive response from the people of Minnesota.
Unfortunately, the lack of public input has been the most disappointing thing about the commission’s work. The commission heard directly from countless experts, but very few regular Minnesotans. Instead, the commission seemed to ignore what the general public was asking for.
I read and received thousands of pieces of feedback on designs that were being debated. That feedback was pretty clear that Minnesotans were not in alignment with the commission’s direction, but the commission was mostly unresponsive.
No matter the result, the process used to select a new flag and seal sets a troubling precedent for the future. We should have done this the right way. We should have taken much longer, with significantly more public testimony and public feedback. At the very minimum, the final designs should be approved by the legislature or the voters. Those were two very big elements that were largely left out of the process.
Placing decisions this significant in the hands of an appointed board, with little public input, risks outcomes that do not adequately reflect the identity and values of all Minnesotans. We need to avoid that in the future.