Students accuse USC of dragging its feet in renaming buildings named for racists
Two student leaders at the University of South Carolina accused school officials of being unnecessarily slow in pushing to rename buildings named for racists or people with ties to slavery.
Student Body President Issy Rushton and Student Body Vice-President Hannah White called for USC’s Presidential Commission on University History, the committee charged with examining building names, to speed up the process, they said in a letter sent Monday.
“We are writing to you to express our deep frustration and disappointment in the lack of progress that has been exhibited by this commission and institution in regards to the renaming of buildings on our campus. Let us be clear: this flagship institution is currently falling on the wrong side of history,” the letter said.
The State has reached out to USC.
Although USC has already recommended renaming one building, Rushton and White are frustrated no action has been taken on other buildings, including one named for the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. Also, USC has a women’s dorm named for Wade Hampton. Wade Hampton III was a Confederate general and his father owned slaves, according to History.com. Hampton III also served as a top member in the Ku Klux Klan, according to the National Park Service.
The letter notes that other universities, such as the University of North Carolina, Queens University in Charlotte, Princeton University and USC’s cross-state rival, Clemson University, have renamed buildings or programs named for historical figures who are tied to slavery.
Last June, Clemson’s board of trustees unanimously asked the S.C. legislature to rename Tillman Hall, named for a slave owner and white supremacist who encouraged extrajudicial killing of Black people. Clemson also removed the name of John C. Calhoun, a former U.S. vice president and slavery proponent, from its honors college.
The two most controversial building names at USC have been a women’s dorm named for J. Marion Sims and the campus gym named for Thurmond.
Sims founded modern gynecology but did so by performing medical experiments on enslaved women. Thurmond was among one of America’s most ardent segregationists in the mid 20th century despite having a mixed-race daughter and despite seeing firsthand the horrors of racism when he helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp in World War II.
Following pressure after the death of George Floyd in June 2020, USC’s board asked the S.C. legislature to approve renaming the Sims building, a move USC President Robert Caslen supported. USC’s star athletes, alumni and students have called for USC to also recommend renaming the Thurmond building, but the board has not done so yet.
Caslen continues to refer to the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness center as either “the Strom” (which is a common abbreviation among students on campus) or by the acronym “STWFC.”
S.C.’s Heritage Act makes it all but impossible to remove monuments or change public building names by requiring two-thirds approval from the S.C. legislature. Last year, a lawsuit was filed alleging S.C.’s Heritage Act is unconstitutional. After the suit was filed, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson said in an official, but nonbinding, legal opinion that requiring a super majority to rename buildings was unconstitutional and later recommended the state Supreme Court to accept the case.
USC’s commission is comprised of community leaders, board of trustees members and faculty. One of the commission’s co-chairs is former USC President Harris Pastides.
White and Rushton, who are members of the commission, asked to be removed from the group “if the honest intention of the commission is not to rename buildings on our campus,” according to the letter.
“Our community is searching for change, and this commission has continued to let questions go unanswered. The longer we continue without action, the more this university will lose the trust of students, alumni, faculty, and staff,” according to the letter.