Clemson board calls Tillman’s views ‘repugnant’

Clemson University’s trustees Friday unanimously called the actions and views of one of the university’s founders, Benjamin Tillman, “repugnant” to Clemson’s values, The Greenville News reported.

The resolution, which was unanimously passed, calls on Clemson to appoint a task force to study the school’s history in depth.

“The Board of Trustees reaffirms that Clemson University should be known as a Top 20 Public University and for its outstanding students, faculty and staff, not by the racist actions a century ago,” according to the resolution.

The resolution does not call for renaming Clemson’s landmark Tillman Hall. But it charges the task force with “exploring appropriate recognition of historical figures.”

Tillman Hall is named after Tillman, a founding Clemson trustee and a former S.C. governor and U.S. senator who spoke virulently against blacks, advocated lynchings, pushed Jim Crow laws and was charged but never indicted in the Hamburg Massacre, where six black men were killed by a white mob.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 2:59 PM.