NCB

This is where political correctness takes us. This country seems to get pinker everyday. It's sad. Though some may think that PCness is a good thing, can we at least agree that this example is a bit over the top??


Posted on Fri, Mar. 11, 2005
By Eric Kurhi

Thomas Jefferson's John Hancock could soon be a thing of the past at the Berkeley elementary school that bears his name.

About two years after a group of teachers and parents started a petition, the school community is nearing a vote that will decide whether to keep the old name or change it to something newer and potentially less offensive.

"It's an awkward position to ask African-American children and African-American teachers to celebrate a historical figure who was a slave-owner," said Marguerite Hughes, who teaches first grade at the school and was part of the original group pushing for the name change.

Hughes said that at first, a group of teachers wanted to rename the cafeteria, which is called the Cafetorium. But as they looked into it, they realized that the same steps had to be taken to change the name of one building as for renaming the whole school.

"And many people weren't comfortable with the name Jefferson," Hughes said.

That was the beginning of what Principal Betty Delaney called an "Olympic process that is just now coming to an end."

They have just completed the nomination period for a new name. A list of names will come out next week. By the end of the month, the number of potential names will be whittled down to one contender slated to run against the third president of the United States.

Parents, teachers and students will all vote, and all votes will be considered equal.

Thomas Jefferson lived from 1743 to 1826. He inherited 5,000 acres in Virginia 's Albemarle County from his father, a planter and surveyor. He was president from 1801-1809, following George Washington and John Adams.

Jefferson's name has become controversial in some circles because of the 150 slaves he owned at his estate, Monticello. Critics usually admit that this was to be expected of a man of his social and economic class --Washington and most other prominent Southerners also owned slaves -- but they argue that a forward-thinking man would not have held humans in bondage, especially not the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

For Mark Simmons, who has a daughter at the school, his opposition to the name change isn't so much a question of American history as his own.

"I just get nostalgic -- I love my alma mater," he said.

Simmons bought the house he grew up in from his father, and would like to see his daughter go to the same school he went to -- in name as well as place.

"I went to King Jr. High and my uncle used to ask me, 'How's Garfield?' I never had a clue what he was talking about," he said.

James Garfield Middle School was renamed to honor Martin Luther King Jr. shortly after his assassination.

More recently, Abraham Lincoln Elementary became Malcolm X, and Christopher Columbus lost more than his holiday in Berkeley -- his namesake school was rebuilt as Rosa Parks Elementary in the late '90s after some impassioned discussion. Not over whether to change the name, but whether to rename it after Rosa Parks or Cesar Chavez.

But at Jefferson, Chris Hudson, who is on an advisory committee for the name change, said things have gone fairly smoothly. He said they tried to make the process as fair and open as possible, and that what he thought was a potentially divisive process has been remarkably calm.

"Whatever happens, we'll still all be parents, teachers and students at the end of the day," Hudson said.

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