Last week I wrote a little bit about Vanderbilt's controversial decision to remove the word "Confederate" from "Confederate Memorial Hall," a dormitory that was so named because the United Daughters of the Confederacy footed one third of its $150,000 price tag when it was built 67 years ago. The school's position is that the word "Confederate" is insensitive and should be removed; UDC's position is that it is breach of contract to change the name of the building. UDC is suing Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt waxes unimpressed. In the words of the Vice Chancellor of Public Affairs, "the word Confederate makes many people uncomfortable." Therefore, in order to "create a more positive, inclusive environment," Vanderbilt must ensure that its "symbols reflect our values going forward."

I got a lot of email about that post--mostly from people who were grateful that someone was willing to stand up and decry the idiocy of Vanderbilt's historical revisionism. The notion that erasing the word "confederate" from a building will somehow erase that building's history (and, by extension, the history of the South), thus making the dormitory acceptable to those who presently find it objectionable, seemed patently ridiculous to me, and I said so. But it doesn't to others. Here is a remarkable op-ed piece celebrating Vanderbilt's revisionist intentions:

I applaud and am impressed that Vanderbilt University is dropping the name "Confederate" from Memorial hall, a 70-year-old building only one third financed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Seems like there should be a statute of limitations on the claim for a name.

I'm sure they mean no insult to the poor Southern farm boys who fought and died tragically for such a dubious cause but wished simply to remove the reference to that cause out of respect for ALL their students.

The Daughters are trying to intimidate the university with a lawsuit and I hope Vanderbilt will stand and win on principle. The lawyers for the Daughters say it is about history, and they are right, that is why the name is being dropped. Those who claim the Confederacy was not about war to preserve slavery are in denial and forget what Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens said in his famous Cornerstone Speech given in Savannah; Georgia, March 21, 1861, "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural and normal condition." This statement was greeted with great applause by those in attendance.

It is time for that awful and bloody chapter of history to be put to rest folks, we are all Americans now and we say we believe in freedom and justice for ALL. Either we honor that or we are hypocrites.

Howard Switzer, treasurer
Green Party of Tennessee
2411 Elliott Avenue
Nashville, TN 37204

This guy doesn't get it. The issue is not one of putting "that awful and bloody chapter of history" to rest. The issue is one of refusing to whitewash, erase, destroy, or otherwise obliterate the historical record as such. UDC spent decades saving up the $50,000 it contributed to the building (in contemporary dollars, that's somewhere between 7 and 10 million). The building itself was erected with the express purpose of providing free housing to women students of Confederate ancestry who could not otherwise afford to go to college. These are not facts that the media has bothered to report, by the way--I have them from readers who have cared enough about what is happening at Vanderbilt to find out the facts for themselves. In any case, the "hypocrites," to borrow Switzer's term, are not those who insist on calling the dorm by its rightful name, but those who think the world would be a better place if we all pretended the past is something other than it is. Vanderbilt has every right to decide whose donations it will and will not accept. But it does not have the right to disown or disavow the traces of donors whose affiliation with the university has become politically inconvenient.

An irony: a Critical Mass reader notes that if Vanderbilt is serious about expunging uncomfortable reminders of its politically incorrect past, it will have to change its own name as well as the name of Confederate Memorial Hall:

Vanderbilt could be on the slippery slope here with ideologically driven name changes.The school is named for Cornelius Vanderbilt, the 19th C. sail and rail tycoon, an ardent capitalist who became wildly wealthy. Since we know that wealth is baaad, and capitalism is baaad a case could be made for changing the whole joint's name.

PS-Vanderbilt's seal has a profile of Cornelius on it. The tobacco spitting old rogue is wearing a crown of laurels.Really.

I vote for Brave New U.