Members of the Babylon Town Board are to mail an American flag to a California university where the student council voted last week to ban its display in its lobby, along with any other national flags.

"In my time serving the country that I love, the American flag has represented the true sacrifices made every day by the uniformed men and women who defend our freedoms," Babylon Town Councilwoman Jackie Gordon, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves who has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, said in a statement released by the town.

Councilman Tom Donnelly, a New York City firefighter who worked at the World Trade Center site following the 2001 attacks, said the vote by the University of California-Irvine, "dishonors the men and women who lost their lives that terrible day."

The student council's ban was vetoed by the school's executive cabinet, according to The Associated Press.

The original resolution had listed 25 reasons for the ban, saying that the American flag has been flown in times of "colonialism and imperialism" and could symbolize American "exceptionalism and superiority."

The $25 flag to be mailed from Babylon Town was purchased from Lindenhurst flag and banner store CJ Flag & Son, said town spokesman Kevin Bonner.

While Gordon and Donnelly were supported by other board members and senior members of the town government, the decision to mail the flag was not an official board resolution and Gordon and Donnelly will split the purchase and mailing costs, Bonner said.