Vanderbilt University gave up the battle to remove the name 'Confederate Memorial' from a residence hall. When the University announced a plan to change the name and remove the offensive stone inscription from the dormitory, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) sued to stop them.
An article from Inside Higher Education sums up the situation:
Lost Cause at Vanderbilt
" With strong support from its black students and alumni, Vanderbilt has been waging a legal fight to remove the word “Confederate” from the front of a dormitory. But the move has outraged groups that seek to honor and study Confederate history. On Monday, Vanderbilt announced that it was giving up its battle — although the university will continue to refer to the building without the “Confederate” name in all publications, maps and public statements.
“We have achieved what we wanted to achieve,” said Michael J. Schoenfeld, vice chancellor for public affairs at the university. He stressed that the only place that the name of the building wouldn’t change was in the inscription on it. “We don’t think carrying this forward is in Vanderbilt’s interest.”
In May, a Tennessee appeals court ruled that Vanderbilt could not drop “Confederate” from the building’s facade — unless it returned a donation it received in 1933 at the value of the donation in today’s dollars.That decision reversed a lower court’s decision that allowed Vanderbilt to drop “Confederate” from the name.
The dispute dates to a move by Vanderbilt in 2002 to drop “Confederate” from the name of “Confederate Memorial Hall.” The Tennessee chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which gave the university money for the building in 1933, went to court to challenge the decision.
Asked why Vanderbilt didn’t repay the Daughters of the Confederacy — as the appeals court ruling would have permitted for the name change — Schoenfeld said, “We didn’t think that was a wise use of Vanderbilt’s resources.”
He emphasized that the court ruling Vanderbilt is not appealing applies only to an inscription, and does not govern anything else. “The name of that building, since 2002, has been Memorial Hall,” Schoenfeld said. " (there's more)
At first glance, paying off the UDC (with roughly one million dollars) seems like a small price to pay in order to rid the campus of a big ugly memorial to the wrong side of the most horrific part of U.S. history. But as appalled as I am by the big ugly memorial to slavery, I think Vanderbilt would have been foolish to pay off the UDC. Funding the neo confederates is definitely not a good idea. That kind of money would buy a lot of Confederate flags and propagate a wealth of new tracts promoting the pro confederate version of history.
In the UDC’s view, Vanderbilt was trying to “rewrite history.” In an online acknowledgement of their “great victory,” the Tennessee UDC speak of continuing the work of teaching “true Southern history.” Perhaps if Vanderbilt built a new dorm and called it John Brown Memorial Hall, the neo confederates might begin to get that there are indeed more ways of seeing “true Southern history” than from the narrow white supremacist view.
While having a very big ugly memorial to slavery on campus doesn’t help Vanderbilt’s image, or its ability to recruit African-American students, the University was successful in putting its objections firmly on the record. For that, Vanderbilt should be commended, but for not going the distance, for not appealing the Court's misguided judgement, Vandy once again proves itself to be a woefully conservative institution.
For more on the UDC, see:
The Southern Poverty Law Center Report on the UDC
Everything you ever wanted to know about “Vanderbilt Confederate Hall” as the Tennessee UDC call it:
Confederation of State Societies 1
Confederation of State Societies 2
Confederation of State Societies 3
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