San Francisco public schools named after former presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are scrapping the names due to the former leaders’ ties to slavery and racism.
The San Francisco Board of Education recently approved renaming 44 public schools, including those named after Thomas Jefferson and “Star-Spangled Banner” writer Francis Scott Key, who were both slave owners, Courthouse News Service reported.
The 6-1 decision was made more than two years after the board launched a committee in May 2018 to review the appropriateness of school names.
The committee suggested guidelines on who should be considered for removal. They concluded that they would nix the names of “anyone involved in the colonization of people, slave owners, perpetrators of slavery or genocide, those who exploited workers, those who oppressed or abused women, children, queer or transgender people, those connected with human rights or environmental abuses, and those who are ‘known racists and/or white supremacists’ or who espoused such beliefs,” Courthouse News Service reported.
One of the most controversial name changes involves the Abraham Lincoln High School. Lincoln is credited with getting the nation through a turbulent civil war and ending slavery by issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. But his name removal is due to his contribution to the genocide of indigenous people, according to the school council.
Besides supporting the expansion of railroads and the Homestead Act of 1862, both of which contributed to the loss of indigenous land, Lincoln decided to execute 38 Native Americans involved in the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, Courthouse News Service reported.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, however, has rebuked the school district for focusing on renaming schools instead of reopening them. Schools have been closed since March 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic.
“Our students are suffering, and we should be talking about getting them in classrooms, getting them mental health support, and getting them the resources they need in this challenging time,” Breed said, adding that she supports the discussion of renaming schools but feels it should include parents, students, and others and take place when classrooms reopen.
Critics point out that renaming the schools will be expensive. According to Deputy Superintendent Myong Leigh, replacing signage for schools will cost approximately $440,000.
Many on Twitter were critical of the decision to scrap the names of Washington and Lincoln from schools.
One user posted that the school board should concentrate on more urgent issues. “…this vote by the #SFUSD board to rename 44 schools in #SanFrancisco is really bad. The district faces a 150M+ shortfall, there’s no coherent re-opening plan—and the name-changes will do nothing to improve achievement disparities across the student population. Terrible.”
Another agreed, tweeting, “Instead of figuring out how to get our kids back in school, you’re spending nearly $15 Million to rename them? @SFUnified seriously? #SFUSD#DoBetter You’re failing our children & our city. #ShameOnYou@lopez4schools you’re historically awful at your job.”
A third tweeter said that political correctness had gone too far. The tweet read, “This cancel culture crap is way out of hand!”
San Francisco Board of Education President Gabriela Lopez said the renaming “in no way cancels or erases history,” the Associated Press reported. “But it does shift from upholding them and honoring them, and these opportunities are a great way to have that conversation about our past and have an opportunity to uplift new voices.”
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Lopez said the decision is timely and important and sends a strong message that goes beyond racism tied to slavery. It condemns wider “racist symbols and white supremacy culture we see in our country.”
San Francisco has removed names or symbols of historical figures before this. In 2019, school officials covered a George Washington mural from 1926 that some said portrayed Black and indigenous people in a dehumanizing way.
Suggestions for new school names are due by April 19.
