January 29, 2021
9:05 PM ET
Font Size:
The San Francisco Board of Education announced that it would rename 44 schools due to racial sensitivity issues.
The schools include ones named for President Abraham Lincoln, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and inventor Thomas Edison.
The document explaining the removals makes clear historical errors in justifying the changes of at least eight of the names.
A document produced by the San Francisco Board of Education to justify renaming 44 different schools is riddled with spelling and historical errors.
The school board voted on Tuesday, Jan. 26, to change the names of schools honoring Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, among others. The move was criticized by San Francisco Mayor London Breed. “The fact that our kids aren’t in school is what’s driving inequity in our City. Not the name of a school,” she said in a press release.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
Abraham Lincoln High School is one of 42 public schools in San Francisco that will undergo a name change. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/TNS)
Lincoln, Washington, Feinstein, Lowell San Francisco will rename 42 schools
Explorers like Vasco Núñez de Balboa are out too, as is Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education voted to change the names of 42 schools because of alleged associations with slaveholding, colonization or oppression.
Those who supported the changes, which affect a third of the district’s schools, said names should reflect the values of a community.
But opponents questioned why some names were included, while others said the focus should be on more substantive issues.
The San Francisco Unified Board of Education voted 6-1 to change a third of its school names for their associations with racism, oppression and colonization.
Lowell High School Doc Premieres at Sundance While Campus Reels from Racist Incident kqed.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kqed.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
James Russell Lowell was a tremendous American poet, who also served as the editor of The Atlantic Monthly and an American diplomat. When he was only twenty-six years old, Lowell wrote a poem, which would later become the hymn, "Once to Every Man and Nation."