ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – June is Pride Month, and it’s not uncommon to see rainbow flags all over the city. But a former PhD student at UNM says someone didn’t take pride in his flags. 

Dr. Benjamin Gerstner says they were repeatedly vandalized while he worked on campus. Now, he plans to sue the university for not taking action when he says he was the target of hate crimes. 

“The last year of my graduate studies that the culture really began to show its face regarding LGBTQ. Well, rather anti-LGBTQ sentiments, and just a, I would say, seemingly unwelcoming environment,” said Gerstner.

Gerstner moved to New Mexico five years ago to pursue his PhD. But months before graduation, he says he felt targeted because a Pride flag on his office door was repeatedly vandalized.

“When the vandalism began, it at first just kind of started with, you know, it was just more of like, ‘Oh, I don’t see that flag on the door anymore. Maybe it got, maybe it fell down or something,’” said Gerstner.

He noticed his flags were disappearing back in spring 2022. But by fall, he says, the vandal got more brazen and started writing slurs like “the pedo flag.”

“I’ve never associated my sexuality with pedophilia. And seeing that put on the symbol of my Pride, it was jarring,” Gerstner said. 

Gerstner reported the vandalism to his supervisors and to UNM police, but he says it took six months for them to open up an investigation. So his office set up their own camera and they captured the vandal red-handed.

The video shows a man in a UNM security uniform, trying to avoid the camera.

“When it came out that it was actually a security guard that was vandalizing the flags, that sense of security and safety was just flipped upside down. So rather than having the person that’s protecting me, protect me, I was trusting in somebody that was committing a crime,” said Gerstner.

Since graduating, Gerstner has moved away from New Mexico and doesn’t plan on coming back. But he still wants justice for what he went through, even though the security guard no longer works at the university.

“A major driver of this case is to ensure that whatever is going on at that institution that is allowing these kinds of egregious hate crimes to be perpetrated against students by UNM Campus Safety officers does not happen again,” said Attorney Jacob Candelaria. 

“As horrible as the story is, it’s not exceptional in that these things happen all the time. And so when people say, ‘Why, why do you need Pride Month?’ I need Pride Month because I need to be able to show who I am, and I need people to see that I am proud of who I am, and I’m not going to live in fear,” said Gerstner. 

When KOB 4 reached out to university officials about the lawsuit, we were told they cannot comment on pending litigations. But a spokesperson did say, “It is an ongoing priority for the University to create a campus community where everyone feels safe and respected.”