The names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), and other figures could be removed from San Francisco public schools for connections to racism, environmental abuses, and other offenses, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday.
The district’s School Names Advisory Committee has drawn up a working paper with recommendations to change the names of 44 public schools in the city. The recommendations will be sent to the San Francisco Board of Education, although it is not clear if the Board will adopt the proposals.
According to the working report, school names should be reconsidered for any historical figure “directly involved in the colonization of people, those connected to any human rights or environmental abuses, slave owners or participants in enslavement, and known racists and/or white supremacists and/or espoused racist beliefs.”
The elementary school named after Senator Feinstein was included in the recommendations because of allegations that during her tenure as San Francisco mayor, she ordered the replacement of a Confederate flag outside City Hall, after the flag was vandalized in 1984. It is not clear if this allegation is correct, and Feinstein in fact proceeded to remove the flag.
“Principals are devoting resources to this,” Jonathan Alloy, a parent of students at one of the schools on the list, told the Chronicle. “We’re not actually helping disadvantaged children by changing the name of the school they can’t attend.”
The recommended name changes follow months of demonstrations after the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers. Rioters in San Francisco have torn down statues of various historical figures, including of Ulysses S. Grant, the northern general who led the fight against the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Send a tip to the news team at NR.