Classrooms at Bishop O'Dowd High School in East Oakland won't have Pride or Progress flags hanging on the walls when students walk in next Monday for the first day of the 2026-27 school year. In their place: a school-designed emblem called the “Inclusive O,” a rainbow-watercolor rendering of the school's capital O logo, underscored with the phrase “seen. known. loved.”
The Catholic school announced plans to replace the flags that had been displayed in classrooms for decades with the new symbol, according to a report from the New York Post. The Inclusive O is now posted across classrooms, offices, and shared campus spaces, per Bishop O'Dowd High School. School leadership plans to display the emblem campus-wide and will no longer show Pride or Progress flags on campus going forward.
President Kim Walsh said the yearlong discussions that led to the new emblem began after Pride and Progress flags became what she called a “lightning rod” at the school during the 2025-2026 academic year. The Post's reporting indicates the school consulted students and community members for a year about how to handle the issue before landing on the new design, which features a large letter O colored with hues drawn from the Pride and Progress flags.
A Symbol With Decades of History Behind It
Classroom Pride flags had flown at Bishop O'Dowd since at least the mid-1990s, and the school has maintained an active LGBTQ+ student organization for more than 25 years, according to reporting cited by the same account. That history is part of why the change has struck a nerve for some in the school community — a Catholic institution that serves roughly 1,250 students on its 20-acre campus and charges $28,380 in annual tuition plus an $1,100 non-refundable enrollment deposit for the 2026-27 year.
An alumni account has argued that removing the flags directly affects the school's LGBTQ+ population by stripping away pieces of representation. An Instagram account run by Bishop O'Dowd alumni accused the school this month of undermining its responsibility to maintain a welcoming, diverse community, and the same account urged community members to respectfully email Walsh about the new policy.
Supporters of the change see it differently. According to the Post's account, backers of the redesign said the Inclusive O belongs specifically to Bishop O'Dowd and that the school's own identity can represent students instead of relying on outside political or social imagery. Parents and community members quoted in that coverage see the change as a way to promote unity, and some believe it better reflects traditional Catholic teachings.
Clubs and Programs Set to Continue
School leadership has said student affinity organizations — including the Unity Club and Pride Arts Club — along with the annual Inclusive Family Day will continue this year. The school also plans a new Inclusive Advisory Council and held a community art workshop in August, according to Bishop O'Dowd's own materials. The Inclusive O itself is meant to represent the school's support for LGBTQ+ students, families, faculty, and staff.
The flag decision doesn't emerge in a vacuum. It follows regional tensions in 2023, when East Bay Catholic school families, staff, and students organized protests over proposed Diocese of Oakland guidance restricting gender identity expression in diocesan schools. Bishop O'Dowd falls under the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, which oversees 82 other East Bay parishes and missions and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2023 after facing more than 330 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits — a financial and structural reorganization Hoodline has covered previously.
Diocesan Leadership and a Wider Bay Area Pattern
Bishop Michael C. Barber of Oakland, who has served as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Catholic Education, has publicly supported 2019 Vatican guidance rejecting gender identity theory in Catholic schooling, according to New Ways Ministry. That doctrinal backdrop stands in contrast to Oakland's public schools, where Pride Month is official district policy and where 18% of high school students identified as LGBTQIA+ in 2024 California Healthy Kids Survey data reported by Oakland Unified School District.
Bishop O'Dowd's move also fits a broader pattern playing out across the Bay Area this year. In April, regional coffee chain Philz Coffee ordered the removal of Pride flags from its cafes, a decision that also drew local pushback, as Hoodline reported in “Philz Coffee's Pride flag pull.” Similar disputes have surfaced elsewhere in the country, including at UChicago Lab Schools, where students moved to rehoist a Pride flag removed under a campus emblem policy earlier this year.
For now, Bishop O'Dowd students will see the Inclusive O across campus when the 2026-27 school year begins next Monday. Whether the new emblem eases the tension Walsh described or deepens the divide among alumni and current families remains an open question as the school year gets underway.
