W&M students push for campus to change faster
Institutions nationwide began divesting themselves of slaveholding and Confederate symbols, names and statues in response to nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers last summer, and the Historic Triangle has been no exception.
With a spring semester enrollment of 8,914 students at the College of William & Mary, there’s a diversity of opinions on campus and among alumni when it comes to renaming buildings, adding context or removing monuments, and reckoning with past racism — as there is across the rest of the country.
Some universities, such as Clemson and the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, decided to remove statues and rename buildings on campus last
summer, according to Inside Higher Ed.
