San Francisco Schools Will No Longer be Named After Racists Like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington

This is “progress” for San Francisco Board of Education.” Per the article, it will cost $10,000 to rename each school. Excerpt from the NYT:

Following the unrest in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, which led to the killing of a protester by a white supremacist, the board moved in 2018 to establish a commission to evaluate renaming schools to “condemn any symbols of white supremacy and racism,” said Gabriela López, the board president.

The commission had decided that schools named after figures who fit the following criteria would be renamed: “engaged in the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or who oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

My question: How many of members of the SF BD of Educ thought this was a ridiculous idea, yet sat on their hands in silence, afraid to speak out?

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath

    Another question worth asking: How many members of the Board of Education acknowledge that this is a distraction from addressing actual causes of racial disparity, such as single parenthood?

    1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
      Erich Vieth

      Next thing we ban is discussing statistics regarding single parenthood, if that hasn’t already happened de facto. I can’t think of a better way to not fix the problem.

  2. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath

    A friend at an Ivy League college was getting his Master’s in Sociology in the 1990s, and submitted a thesis topic: single parenthood and life outcomes. He was told that even asking the question was racist, and if he persisted in pursuing his racist dogma he would be expelled. Some time after 2000 sanity prevailed and today most sociologists agree that single parenthood is the scourge of life outcomes.

    1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
      Erich Vieth

      Anyone who has raised children knows how nice it is to have a backup parent. We recently had a tragedy in my family–my ex-wife suddenly died. I can palpably feel the difference. I am now the only parent to our two daughters and it is a sea change.

  3. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath

    The difference is immense. Children of single parents have worse outcomes in schooling, health, employment, incarceration, lifespan and dozens of other measurements. When comparing black and white cohorts based on number of parents in the home in early childhood, gaps largely disappear in poverty, incarceration and employment. They become startlingly less vast in health, diet and lifespan. We have hard numbers that show that out-of-wedlock births are bad for children. The lie that people are trying to impose their morals on others is atrocious. Although the 1 male and 1 female model with commitment thru marriage yields the best results, anything from same-sex couples through polyamorous relationships is better than one parent. It’s not about imposing one’s morals on anyone. It’s about the children, period. Ideologues who refuse to admit this are racists.

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