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Topline
The San Francisco School board voted Tuesday to suspend its effort to remove the names of racist historical figures from city schools, which critics lampooned as a haphazard process that failed to consult historians and included people such as Abraham Lincoln, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Paul Revere.
A sign is posted outside of Abraham Lincoln High School on December 17, 2020 in San Francisco, … [+]
Key Facts
The school board said in February it would pause the renaming effort, but Tuesday’s vote officially reverses the decision and requires the school board to return to the issue only after all students return to in-person learning.
The reversal comes after a lawsuit accused the school board of disregarding California’s open meeting law when it voted in January to change 44 school names associated with racism, sexism and colonialism.
A San Francisco Superior Court judge ordered the school board last month to back down from the renaming plan by April 16, and the school board said it wants to “avoid the distraction and wasteful expenditure of public funds in frivolous litigation”
The renaming plan even drew criticism from school board President Gabriela López, who admitted in February there were some mistakes in the process, and promised to consult historians at nearby universities going forward.
Key Background
The San Francisco school board voted in January to rename 44 schools compiled by the San Francisco School Names Advisory Committee. Though the blue ribbon panel was established in 2018, the vote came amid a nationwide reckoning with racist historical figures in the wake of racial justice protests over the summer. Right-wing media outlets immediately derided the plan as political correctness run amok, but the idea was widely criticized by liberals too because the advisory committee made embarrassing errors. Paul Revere, for example, was mistakenly accused of trying to colonize the indigenous Penobscot Nation. Dianne Feinstein Elementary School was also on the list because the senator reportedly reinstalled a vandalized Confederate flag as San Francisco mayor in 1984— though according to Snopes, it’s unclear if she personally made the decision and days later she ordered the flag to be replaced with one honoring Union soldiers.
Surprising Fact
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, called the renaming effort “offensive” and criticized the school board for focusing on symbolic measures while failing to prioritize reopening schools, which she said continues to exacerbate inequality in the city.
Tangent
The renaming debacle comes amid a turbulent period for San Francisco’s school board. While elementary school students are just returning to in-person learning this month, middle and high school students are still remote, drawing fierce criticism from parents and a lawsuit from the city attorney. Adding to the chaos, school board member Alison Collins was removed as vice president and taken off committees last month after a series of tweets from 2016 about Asian Americans resurfaced in the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings. Collins has since sued the school board seeking to regain her position.
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