  In confining lattice gauge theories in which part of the flavor group is
coupled weakly to additional gauge fields, both the dynamics of the weak gauge
fields as well as lattice artifacts may have non-trivial effects on the
orientation of the vacuum in flavor space. Here we discuss this issue for
lattice gauge theories employing staggered fermions. Staggered fermions break
flavor symmetries to a much smaller group on the lattice, and orientations in
flavor space that are equivalent in the continuum may be distinct on the
lattice. Assuming universality, we show that in the continuum limit the weakly
gauged flavor symmetries are always vector-like, disproving a recent claim in
the literature.
