After building name protests, USC may rename a campus dorm. Will it honor a Black leader?

The University of South Carolina will consider renaming a campus building on Friday, months after Interim President Harris Pastides indicated some building names could be changed to honor prominent Black leaders.

Friday, USC’s board of trustees will meet and consider an “honorific naming” of a mixed-use building at 700 Lincoln Street, which is roughly two blocks from Colonial Life Arena, according to the board’s agenda. The building houses fast food restaurants on the first level and dormitories in upper floors.

The board’s agenda calls for final approval of the honorific naming, meaning the decision could be final as soon as Friday. The agenda doesn’t indicate who the building may be named for. USC would not say which names were being considered.

The building, 700 Lincoln, is located across the street from another dorm, 650 Lincoln. The name change would apply only to 700 Lincoln, USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in a text message.

While campus buildings that honor historical figures can only be renamed with approval from the state legislature, 700 Lincoln is named for a street address, not the president.

USC has faced calls to rename multiple campus buildings named for segregationists, slave owners and racists, calls that intensified following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 at the hands of a police officer. One of the most prominent calls was to rename a campus fitness center, named for late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who was an ardent supporter of segregation in the 40s, 50s and 60s before changing his stance later in life.

But despite the public outcry and the recommendation of a commission of academics, students, community leaders and more, USC did not formally ask the state legislature to rename the buildings. South Carolina’s Heritage Act prevents schools from renaming buildings named for historic figures without approval from the S.C. legislature.

Even if USC’s administration and board of trustees had formally recommended renaming controversial buildings, the prospect of legislators removing the names of buildings faced slim-to-none odds in the State House. However, Pastides indicated in a July letter to students and employees that renaming existing buildings not covered by the Heritage Act could be an option.

“We are committed to contextualizing the full history of the university and the commission’s research shows us how we can do that, including the recommendation of adding new names to buildings and other places on campus,” Pastides said in the July letter.

Some of the proposed new names for campus buildings include USC’s first Black faculty member, Richard Greener; the first woman to graduate USC, Mattie Jean Adams; educator Septima Clark; the first woman to integrate USC in the ‘60s, Henrie Monteith Treadwell; civil rights advocate Willie Lloyd Harriford and dozens more, according to USC’s Presidential Commission on University History.

This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 1:37 PM.