Dallas Independent School District included schools named after three of America’s Founding Fathers on a list of schools that the district is exploring renaming.
The DISD administration has already recommended renaming four schools named after Confederate generals, including Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The district is conducting additional research on whether to rename at least 20 other schools named after historical figures. The list of schools, posted by DISD board member Dustin Marshall on Facebook Saturday night, includes schools named after Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
“I will not support a name change for Franklin since Benjamin Franklin clearly had many accomplishments that form the basis for why the school was named after him. I don’t believe this school was named after Franklin to send a signal of oppression and control,” Marshall wrote. (Benjamin Franklin Middle School is the only school on the list that falls within Marshall’s district.)
The district is exploring whether to rename the schools on the list because of their namesake’s ties to slavery or the Confederacy, the Dallas Morning News reported. (RELATED: SPLC Says Army Bases Are Confederate Monuments That Need To Come Down)
The Dallas City Council recently voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee located in Dallas. The statue came down on Thursday at a cost of approximately $450,000, CBS DFW reported.
President Trump questioned last month whether the removing of statues of Lee and other Confederate figures would lead to the removal of tributes to slave-owning Founding Fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
“So will George Washington now lose his status?” Trump asked. “Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson?”
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