Posted on 06/02/2005 9:14:09 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BERKELEY — A tree beat out a former slave-owning president in the long-running campaign to change the name of a Berkeley elementary school, according to results released Wednesday.
Students, parents and staff members voted 239 to 177 to change the name of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School to Sequoia Elementary School.
"It was pretty close," said district spokesman Mark Coplan.
The Berkeley Unified School District's Board of Education must approve the name change at its meeting Wednesday, Coplan said.
"They could say no. ... I think it will bring out some pretty interesting discussion," Coplan said, adding that some fear a name change will set a precedent for randomly changing the names of other district schools.
If approved by the board, school officials said it will cost the district "a few thousand dollars" to build a new sign and to print new stationery and business cards.
Results from the district show 111 students voted for Jefferson while 161 students cast votes for Sequoia. Staff members cast five ballots for Jefferson and 11 votes for Sequoia. One staff member did not vote. Parents and guardians also voted, casting 61 ballots for Jefferson and 67 votes for Sequoia.
"The name Jefferson was there for all that time, now it's a different culture, different people," said Dora Dean Bradley, who worked on the name change and has a granddaughter at the school.
Votes were tallied Tuesday night by Principal Betty Delaney and a name change oversight committee, Coplan said.
The drive to change the name of Jefferson Elementary School was launched more than two years ago by Marguerite Talley-Hughes, an African-American teacher, and two other teachers who felt the name was offensive because the nation's third president was a slave owner.
Talley-Hughes did not return calls for comment Wednesday but said in an earlier interview, "I think it's difficult to ask people to accept someone as a hero who enslaved their ancestors."
The vote for Sequoia comes several months after a list of eight alternatives was released to the school community.
The possible names included Ohlone, Rose, Peace and Sequoia as well as farm worker organizer Cesar Chavez; Ralph Bunche, a United Nations diplomat; Sojourner Truth, a leader in the abolitionist movement; and Florence McDonald, a former Berkeley City Council member.
Berkeley has changed the names of three others schools in the past.
John Garfield Jr. High became King Middle School shortly after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assignation in 1968. Lincoln Elementary became Malcolm X in the 1970s in response to his assassination, and Columbus Elementary was renamed Rosa Parks after it was de stroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
If it is in Berkeley, why don't they just call it the "Marx re-education center."
Jefferson was reduced by the author of the article to a "former slave-owning president" with no mention of any of his other contributions. Not exactly unbiased.
I wouldn't have minded "Sojourner Truth."
Where I live, they name schools "Sequoia," too. This mystifies me. We're three thousand miles from the nearest sequoia. Perhaps liberals imagine that sequoias in some way embody values young children will find inspiring? I can't think of any human rights/activist connection to these trees, which is what usually moves the selection of school names.
I wouldn't have minded "Sojourner Truth."
Where I live, they name schools "Sequoia," too. This mystifies me. We're three thousand miles from the nearest sequoia. Perhaps liberals imagine that sequoias in some way embody values young children will find inspiring? I can't think of any human rights/activist connection to these trees, which is what usually moves the selection of school names.
Another nail in the coffin of our history. How long will it be until we have a run on "Clinton High School"?
One of TJ's first acts when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses was to pass a law allowing a slave-owner to emacipate his slaves. He was soundly defeated! On any number of occasions (including writing the Dec of Ind) attempted same, only to lose. Wonder if the concerned citizens involved with the name change know anything about TJ other than what they were told.
I'm a parent there. Here's my take. Obviously (I'm on this board afterall, and certainly the only parent at the school who looks at this board I bet) I voted against the name change. I don't have to explain why. I'm against changing names in general. It's Orwellian.
I'll add one thing. Yesterday I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Blink'. He writes about psychological Priming. The idea is that you can easily influence a person's success or failure based upon how you 'prime' his/her subconcious. So, when I black kid enters the school yard and sees the Jefferson sign -- who he/she identifies as a slave holder -- the kid is going to subconciously view him or herself as inferior. It makes you think twice.
By the way, did you know that Berkeley was named after Bishop George Berkeley? The philosopher and influential thinker who came over from Ireland to start a college in the colonies. He purchased land and slaves. When he returned to Europe, he gave the land to what is now Yale. Yes, Bishop Berkeley was a slave owner.
Source: http://www.kgoam810.com/viewentry.asp?ID=329431&PT=PROGRAM
They'd have to be all girl schools, of course.
Re-writing history and destroying traditions has always been a major preoccupation of the Left. I used to joke about church/state separationists' someday demanding to change the names of cities with Christian-derived names, e.g., San Francisco, San Diego, Corpus Christi, etc. Now I think it's not such a remote possibility.
"The name Jefferson was there for all that time, now it's a different culture, different people," said Dora Dean Bradley, who worked on the name change and has a granddaughter at the school. "
Well its still the same country and the same Declaration of Independence. What an historical moron. A real iconoclast.
Is this is the same school district that said the Declaration of Independence was unconstitutional?
Wow. My mind has just been boggled.
Just wait until they unveil Tupac Elementary school and C-Murder Middle School and 50-cent High School.
It wouldn't surprise me.
Sophomoric is a good adjective for the Berkely community;
"wise fools".
Well its still the same country and the same Declaration of Independence. What an historical moron. A real iconoclast.
We're of like mind. To hear Dora Dean Bradley tell it, liberty, academic pursuit, scientific experimentation, and all the other admirable things associated with Jefferson are sooooo last century.
Of course, Jefferson was a product of his times, and we can clearly see today the wrongness of slavery. However, we too (as a society) are products of our times... and I wonder how future generations will view the fact that today babies are routinely ripped from the womb for convenience.
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