USC engineering professor faces backlash for Blue Lives Matter Flag outside his office: Refuses to remove it because BLM's claim black lives are at risk of police violence is a 'lie'

  A professor at the University of Southern   California   is facing backlash for refusing to remove the pro-police Blue Lives Matter flag o...

 A professor at the University of Southern California is facing backlash for refusing to remove the pro-police Blue Lives Matter flag outside his office insisting that the message black lives are disproportionately at risk of police violence is a 'lie.'

James Moore, professor of engineering and policy, has ignored repeated calls to take the flag down from students and administrators who he says live in a 'progressive bubble.'  

Moore spoke with Fox & Friends on Friday to defend his stance. 'I feel a responsibility right now. I wanted to communicate to progressively-oriented students that there's a competing point of view,' he said. 

'They live in something of a progressive bubble on a college campus… I wanted to communicate to conservative students, of which there are many, that in fact they're entitled to their voice, that the messages they hear are really not representative of society at large.' 

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James Moore, professor of engineering and policy at the University of Southern California, refuses to remove his Blue Lives Matter flag claiming that the message that black people are disproportionately impacted by police violence is a 'lie'

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Moore hung this Blue Lives Matter flag on his door at the beginning of the semester to remind students on the campus that they are living in a 'progressive bubble' and that other opinions exist out in the world 

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While intended to show support for law enforcement, the Blue Lives Matter flag has come to represent opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. Several of these flags were seen flying at the Capitol insurrection on January 6.  

He says he hung the flag at the beginning of the semester to contradict the Black Lives Matter message that black lives are at risk of police violence. 

'I think it's a lie,' he said. 'Black lives benefit rather strongly, disproportionately from the activities of police. We can't diminish police violence by diminishing policing. That's ridiculous. Black lives are at greatest risk from reduced police service.' 

Instead he argues: 'If all lives matter and black lives in particular matter, then we need to make sure that they're secure.'

According to Mapping Police Violence, black people accounted for 26% of those killed by police in 2021 despite being only 13% of the population. The same data showed that black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by police than white people and 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed than white people.  

There is no correlation between crime rates and police violence with most killings by police beginning with traffic stops, mental health checks, and domestic disturbances, according to the data. 

Police killings began when a person was seen with a weapon at the same rate that they began when no crime was alleged, the data shows.

But 98.3% of police killings between 2013 and 2020 resulted in no charge for the officer. 

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Students on the California college campus were vocal about their concerns about the controversial flag 'citing the flag's racist origins and Moore's past remarks regarding Title IX and USC's diversity initiatives,' the Daily Trojan reported. 

USC graduate student Shai Porat is one of the many students who raised concerns about the flag to administrators. 

'This is an inappropriate and unnecessary symbol to have on an office door where USC is, within the last year or two, trying to have a much broader diversity initiative and to be inclusive, especially in the STEM area,' Porat told the Daily Trojan.

He believes Moore is 'trolling' the university and its students: '[Moore] had to know this would be an inappropriate thing to have, especially with USC's diversity initiatives.'

The engineering professor claimed that USC's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are 'counterproductive' and said he was 'skeptical' that the university fosters racism and inequality in any way. 

Another graduate student, Maricarmen Pachicano, is also upset by Moore's Blue Lives Matter flag and claims USC needs to take harsher action against the professor. 

'I want them to take it down, and I want them to do something about Professor Moore because this is not the first controversial thing he's done,' Pachicano said to the Daily Trojan. 

Moore also made waves at the university in 2018 when he responded to a schoolwide email regarding Title IX sexual abuse allegations saying that 'accusers sometimes lie.'

The California professor's recent comments have students calling for the university to take action against the provocative educator yet again.