By Ti-Ana Pyatt and Tony W. Cawthon
In an era marked by student activism surrounding historical monuments and symbols, the book Washington Next? Disputed Monuments, Honorees, and Symbols on Campus (2021) is a timely exploration of disputes about memorials across 25 prominent campuses. Authored by Ainsley Carry, a respected higher education administrator, the book spans the period from the 2015 anti-Black church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, to the tragic 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Readers learn about the catalysts that spark these movements on campus, institutional responses, and frameworks for addressing disputes about memorials.
Because campus environments are dynamic and are reflective of cultural changes and societal shifts, housing and residence life professionals often find themselves in the midst of complex dialogues, conflict resolution, and community building. This book serves as a valuable resource for these professionals, offering an understanding of historical factors that shape student activism and strategies for creating a supportive residential community.
The text is divided into three parts and consists of seven chapters. In Part 1, “Catalyst and Response,” the first two chapters serve as an introduction to the complex causes and often inadequate responses related to the issue of memorials “built to propagate a false doctrine and deny civil rights progress for millions of American citizens,” as well as surveying a complex history of cruelty targeted at Black and Indigenous people, including colonization, slavery, lynching, massacres, segregation, forced sterilization, voter suppression, and unethical medical experimentation. Many leaders of these movements are honored on college and university campuses in monuments, murals, plaques, and named buildings – and, as such, they memorialize many individuals who served with the Confederate army, were leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, and boasted about their belief in white supremacy.
This section introduces more than 50 disputes about memorials at 25 higher education institutions and the institutional responses, which typically follow four steps: (1) assembling a task force that generally includes faculty, staff, students, trustees, and community members; (2) charging the task force with specific responsibilities such as changing the name of and contextualizing the memorial; (3) establishing guiding principles, which frequently involve focusing on teaching and learning in the process, considering the memorial’s whole meaning, and avoiding the tendency to erase history; and (4) delivering the response. Of those discussed in this section, “23 memorials were retained, 8 were relocated, and 25 were removed.”
Part II, “The Four Frames,” offers a framework for reviewing memorials, presenting four lenses to use when conducting such evaluations and explaining how institutions determined their recommendations for response. Chapter 3 examines the principal legacy question; in this context, “principal” refers to the primary or most important aspect of the disputed honoree’s contributions to society, whether that legacy is positive or negative, and whether or not they should continue to be memorialized. Though examination of the principal legacy question was supposed to rely on facts, not opinions, the task forces at several higher education institutions had difficulty getting to the truth when unavoidable external and internal factors blurred their reasoning.
Chapter 4 presents information about heritage protection acts, which are regulations put in place, typically by state legislatures, to protect or preserve heritage. Southern politicians have created considerable legislation and employed many protection laws to protect Confederate war memorials, and Carry analyzes the influence of these laws on five universities in the American South. As the author notes, it is not typical for a Confederate war memorial to be removed in a state with heritage protection laws, but Duke University became an exception when it removed the Robert E. Lee statue from its campus – which, as a private institution on private property, it could do because it was not limited by the state’s heritage protection law.
Chapter 5 focuses on the concept of landscape fairness, which means that people must consider how the physical environment has historically marginalized and oppressed certain groups of people. This perspective connects culture, geography, power, and race dynamics to analyze how the built environment celebrates the achievements of the white population and diminishes or overlooks the achievements of other groups. On college and university campuses, it’s rare to find an acknowledgment of the historical displacement of Indigenous communities or the labor of enslaved individuals.
Chapter 6 focuses on the moral standards question. Should the honorees be evaluated based on prevailing norms from their own time and location, or should the standards of today's society – which could view past behaviors as immoral and offensive – be applied? Honorees from several universities were connected to the Ku Klux Klan, unethical medical experiments, and discriminatory housing practices against minorities: practices deemed acceptable given the moral climate of the time. Finding a balance between recognizing historical context and aligning with modern values requires thoughtful consideration of the monument's significance, its impact on the campus community, and its broader ethical implications.
Part III (Chapter 7) revisits the major themes of the entire text, but one question remains: "Is George Washington next?" Despite being one of our founding fathers and our first president, Washington was also an enslaver. Should historical monuments associated with him become targets for removal?
There are several essential takeaways for housing and residence life professionals. They can benefit from the knowledge – ranging from the historical context to actionable steps – of how to navigate the challenges of such disputes on their own campuses; create more informed decision-making within their residential communities; ensure that the names chosen for residence halls align with the values of diverse student populations; and utilize the appropriate tools to create proactive strategies to deal with potential conflicts. They can also develop initiatives that actively contribute to a more respectful campus community. These initiatives can range from themed programming for students to training sessions and professional development opportunities for staff. As live-on professionals, they are uniquely positioned to facilitate an environment where inclusive dialogue can occur within residential communities. Through insights gathered from this book, they can create spaces where residents engage with one another by sharing diverse perspectives, thereby promoting inclusive campus environments and cultivating a residential experience that aligns with the values of their institutions. One final point we would stress is that institutions examining campus monuments and symbols should be prepared to involve many constituent groups in the dialogue and must understand how some groups may react to the idea of removing or renaming monuments and campus spaces. Effective strategies and decisions will require extensive time and discussion to come to acceptable solutions.
Ti-Ana Pyatt is the assistant director for student engagement for the Center for Student Leadership and Engagement at Clemson University in South Carolina. Tony W. Cawthon is an Alumni Distinguished Professor at Clemson.