From Campus Reform:
FSU prez defies student vote, agrees to relocate Eppes statue
Florida State University says it will relocate a statue of Francis Eppes, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, even though the idea was rejected in a 2016 student referendum.
FSU President John Thrasher announced Tuesday that the school will remove the statue of Francis Eppes from Westcott Plaza in accordance with the recommendation of a panel he appointed last fall, The Tallahassee Democrat reports.
As Campus Reform has previously reported, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapter at FSU had spearheaded a referendum in 2016 calling for the Eppes statue’s removal on the grounds that he was “especially racist” and “especially pro-slavery.”
Despite acknowledging that “Eppes’ history as a slave owner” was the primary objection raised by students, Thrasher focuses primarily on Eppes’ role in the founding of FSU in his rationale for the decision, only mentioning slavery in the context of calling for a marker to provide context for the statue in its new location.
“The panel uncovered sufficient new evidence to dispute the claim that Eppes was the sole founder of FSU,” he asserts, saying, “It’s clear that Eppes had an important part to play in the early days of this institution’s history, but declaring him ‘the founder’ is overstating his role.”
While the statue will be moved to an unspecified location, however, Thrasher decided not to rename Eppes Hall, but rather to install a marker in or near the building “to provide biographical information about Eppes, including his slave ownership and role as justice of the peace, and to place his contribution to the founding of this institution in proper context.”
At this point, I say Florida just shuts down Florida State University. If the most historically significant thing about the (primary) founder of the institution is that he was a slave holder, than clearly by the logic of Social Justice, FSU is the product of slavery.
No need for any other interpretation, that is just white privilege and racism.
They need to close down the school.
This is probably the best course of action for students as well, considering that any school with an administration this dedicated to Social Justice has probably degenerated into a bullshit major diploma mill.
Why spend the tuition money for a degree that’s not worth the parchment it’s printed on?
“All of the alumni’s degrees should be rescinded and all the money from those degrees will to be given to the disenfranchised peoples that have been affected by the racist history of this monstrous university.” ~ ProgSpeak
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984