September 6, 2017 The Skanner Page 9
News
Officials Grappling with Confederate Names on Public Schools
By Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press
W
ith a new school
year dawning,
education offi-
cials are grap-
pling with whether to
remove the names, imag-
es and statues of Confed-
erate figures from pub-
lic schools — especially
since some are now filled
with students of color.
The violence at a white
nationalist rally over a
Robert E. Lee statue in
Charlottesville, Virginia,
is giving school officials
a new reason to recon-
sider whether it’s appro-
priate for more than 100
schools to be named after
Confederate
generals
and politicians from the
Old South.
“It does not make sense
to have schools named af-
ter individuals who were
directly connected to
that dark past, and force
kids in Dallas, a majority
minority population, to
walk into these schools
every day and have to
face this past every sin-
gle day,” said Miguel So-
lis, former board presi-
dent and current board
member of the Dallas
Independent School Dis-
trict.
Dallas, along with oth-
er cities, began moving
to change Confederate
names and imagery af-
ter white nationalist and
Confederate enthusiast
Dylann Roof murdered
nine black churchgoers
in Charleston, South Car-
olina on June 17, 2015.
But the reviews gained
momentum after the
Aug. 12 protest by white
supremacists in Charlot-
tesville, which left one
counter-protester dead.
“We don’t tolerate hate
or discrimination of any
form, and we are commit-
ted to providing an ed-
ucational environment
where all students can
feel safe and welcomed
at school,” said Superin-
tendent Aurora Lora in
Oklahoma City, where
there are four schools
named after Confederate
generals.
“We want to think
about the people our
buildings are named af-
ter and whether they rep-
resent the values we as a
district have at this time,”
Lora said.
According to the South-
ern Poverty Law Cen-
ter, there are at least 109
public schools named
after Robert E. Lee, Jef-
ferson Davis or other
Confederate icons in the
“
history needs to be pre-
served, or they align the
philosophy of the Con-
federacy or neo-Nazis.”
The South has the
majority of Confeder-
ate-named public schools
in the country.
In Falls Church, Virgin-
ia, the school board has
voted to rename J.E.B.
Stuart High School. Stu-
art was a slaveholding
Confederate general who
was mortally wound-
ed in an 1864 battle. In
Montgomery, Alabama,
the school board is look-
ing at moving Lee’s stat-
ue from the front of ma-
jority-black Robert E. Lee
High School.
In Arlington, Virginia,
It does not make sense to
have schools named after in-
dividuals who were directly
connected to that dark past,
and force kids in Dallas, a
majority minority popu-
lation, to walk into these
schools every day and have
to face this past
United States. Of those,
“27 have student popu-
lations that are majority
African-American, and
10 have African-Ameri-
can populations of over
90 percent,” according to
the SPLC’s 2016 report.
Several school names
were changed, or new
schools were built and
named after Confeder-
ates “during the era of
white resistance to equal-
ity,” the SPLC report said.
Solis said he has sup-
port for his effort to
change school names in
Dallas, but “that’s not
to say that there haven’t
been people who have
been very upset because
they believe either the
Robert E. Lee’s home-
town, there is a move
now to rename Washing-
ton-Lee High School. “It is
time to talk about the val-
ues these names reflect
and the messages we are
sending to our children,”
Barbara Kanninen, Ar-
lington school board
chair, said in a statement.
At some schools, the
push for change starts
with the students. In
Greenville, South Caroli-
na, student Asha Marie
started a Change.org pe-
tition to rename Wade
Hampton High School.
Hampton was a Confed-
erate cavalry command-
er during the Civil War
and was later elected
AP PHOTO/ERIC GAY, FILE
According to the SPLC, there are at least 109 public schools named after Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis or
other Confederate icons in the United States
In this Aug. 21, 2017 file photo, a pedestal wrapped in plastic that had held a statue of Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee which was removed from the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. With a new
school year dawning, education officials around the nation are grappling with whether to remove the
names, images and statues of Confederate figures from public schools, some of whom are now filled with
students of color who could be descendants of those whom the South fought to keep in slavery.
governor of South Caro-
lina and criticized the Re-
construction era which
put black leaders in po-
litical office.
“Racism, bigotry, and
a blatant lack of patrio-
tism,” she wrote in her
petition. “These are not
values of South Carolin-
ians and should not con-
tinue to be enshrined in a
place of learning.”
But another student,
Austin Ritter, started
a counterpetition to
keep the name. “There
is no need to change the
school’s name,” Ritter
wrote. “Changing the
name of this school will
also change its history. It
will change everything
the school has stood for.
Everything the school
has done.”
At others, alumni and
outsiders are the ones
sounding the call.
The debate over the
Stuart name change in
Falls Church kicked off
in earnest in 2015 when
actress Julianne Moore,
who attended Stuart
in the ‘70s, and Holly-
wood producer Bruce
Cohen, a Stuart alum-
nus, launched a petition
demanding the name
change. In Alabama, it
was a community activist
who suggested moving
the Lee statue out from
in front of Robert E. Lee
High School.
Changing a school’s
name is not cheap. In
Oklahoma City, Lora said
it could be $50,000 or
more to change signage,
letterhead,
business
cards and more for each
school; Other school offi-
cials have quoted higher
and lower figures.
“You can make any ex-
cuse you want to try and
stop something like this
and dollars are what a lot
of people lead with,” said
Solis, who called it a “hol-
low argument.”
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