Don’t Name Schools After People

People are flawed and history is relentless.

Yesterday’s heroes are today’s oppressors. And activists are unforgiving. Taking a person’s full contributions into account and balancing those against his mistakes and even outright misdeeds is not something that’s in fashion in today’s hyper-polarized society. I wrote about that a few years ago when Madison’s James Madison Memorial High School was renamed.

In my morning paper two stories ran side by side. The first was about the excruciating, year-long process to rename two Madison schools. The second was about he sudden plunge in the reputation of Cesar Chavez, who has been dead for three decades.

There is, in fact, a Cesar Chavez elementary school in Madison, but the allegations of Chavez’ misconduct with girls while he led the United Farm Workers were just brought back into light and troubling focus this week by the New York Times. So the renamings are for two others whose reputations fell into disrepair years ago.

Charles Lindbergh may have been the first to fly the Atlantic, but he also was a leader in the America First movement to keep the U.S. out of World War II and, along the way, he had nice things to say about the Nazis and even accepted a medal from them. Conrad Elvehjem was a UW professor whose work led to treatments for a disease that disproportionately impacted Black Americans, but he also supported racial covenants in his Madison neighborhood.

So, I suppose, on balance it makes some sense to rename these schools. But it shouldn’t take a year, and God knows how much staff time, to do it. And the Chavez revelations should be taken as a warning about the folly of naming buildings after anyone.

The official Madison schools policy on this reads: “MMSD schools are named for prominent national or local figures who are deceased, locally significant geographical sites, places of local significance, or ideas or concepts which represent a broadly respected community value.”

MMSD should simply drop the first clause. Name buildings after things or values, not after people. Although, I have to admit, that even that could be perilous. Try naming a building “Merit School” and see what happens. Still, the minefield for values and places is somewhat less packed than it is for people.

And, if we really wanted to take all the risk (and the life) out of naming our schools we could follow New York’s example. Kids could be proud graduates of dear old PS 25… until someone discovers that 25 had a sinister meaning.