It’s not easy being a university president these days. You have a lot to do: fundraising, dealing with prickly alumni and legislators, trying to somehow reconcile athlete and student, being sensitive to the needs and whims of post-adolescents, and being the face of the university.
Now add to the list resolving a problem created by the long history of these venerable institutions. The names of buildings, memorials and statues that seemed benign, even honorable, are now perceived by many as racist in the light of the 21st century. That, of course, is the beauty of history. Not only do we continue to learn new and different things about the past, but the lens that we use to examine that past changes, too.
My alma mater Vanderbilt University has just announced that a residence hall bearing the inscription Confederate Memorial Hall is to now to be known as Memorial Hall. Vandy’s President Nicholas Zeppos noted that Confederate Memorial Hall had been a symbol of exclusion, and a divisive contradiction of the hopes and dreams of Vanderbilt as a great and inclusive university. No kidding.
Other universities have confronted the issue with different results. Yale refused to change the name of Calhoun College, named after John C. Calhoun a 19th-century senator, statesman and political theorist who defended slavery. Princeton refused to change the name of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs following research that revealed the 28th president as a virulent racist. Who knew? I remember him as the guy who championed the failed League of Nations.
This is slippery business. On the one hand, it does seem wrong to honor people like Andrew Jackson who pursued genocidal policies toward the Cherokee tribes, or Southern Civil War calvaryman Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was one of the founders of the KKK. On the other hand, history is the story of trying to figure out what happened, and the Trail of Tears did happen and the Klan did arise from the ashes of the Confederate defeat in the Civil War. Totalitarian regimes frequently tear down statues and rewrite history. Stalin starved millions of Russians, but for decades this horror did not exist in Russian history books.
Of course every statue and building is unique. People of good faith can differ on these issues. I think I agree with Yale President Peter Solovey: “The principle that is most compelling is that we should not obscure our history, and we shouldn’t run from our past.”
Instead, we should confront, study, criticize and learn from the dark lessons these people and events teach. Whether the building name is changed or not, whether the statue is moved or stays put, that decision should not be the end, but the beginning of a higher, better learning.
