U Of Texas REFUSES To Rename Dorm Named For Former Klansman A former University of Texas law professor is challenging the school to change the name of a dorm that is ordained after Ku Klux Klan organizer William Simkins -- but the school is not having it. ------ What a shame!!! Full article -The Link
Who the heck cares who Simkins, Jester or Moore-Hill are? They are dorms. The vast majority of people have never heard of this people. Next San Jacinto will be offensive because it represents the battle in which Texas defeated Mexico.
It is not named after him because he was in the Klan but because he was a good law school prof for decades. Austin is named after a guy who wanted to practice genocide against the Karankawa Indians; that has to go. Houston is named after a guy who owned slaves. Adios, mofo. The east mall has a statue of a guy who plagiarized his dissertation and ran around on his wife. Tear it down. Etc, etc, etc.
When I think of Simkins, I think of the lame dorm where only guys live and nobody wants to go hang out at. I mean, it's all secluded by itself with no other dorms near by, no easily accessible cafeterias or food stores, and no women, if anything, leaving it named Simkins is an insult to the guy. I wouldn't want that dump named after me.
Russel had a bone to pick with current president Powers from back in their Law prof days so he dredges up this story. No one currently on campus had a clue as to Simpkins background and the dorm is not prominent on campus. The guy has been dead 80 years and the building is over 50 years old. UT will most likely end up renaming or bulldozing.
Travis County is named after a white guy who owned a slave whom he exposed to extreme harm in San Antonio. Change the county name. And he was a southerner, too!!
It has been brought to my attention that the nation's capital is named after a man who owned many slaves. Someone needs to bring this to the attention of the proper authorities so this abomination might be cured.
I went to school at UT in the late 60s and early 70s and it was still a sleepy little southern town with a largish and comparatively liberal university and the city and the school and its students did not always see eye to eye. The good ole boys on the Board of Regents were part of the old Austin bunch and thought the school ought to be run for the town's benefit. Come to think of it, they still do. Anyway, they were a bunch of bigots. The President of the school board was a bigot who got elected Mayor. Here would be my suggestion if in fact the dorm was named after Simkins because he was Klan: change the name of the dorm to Sweatt, after the black man who sued the U to get into law school and then got treated like dirt for his efforts when he got in. Take the names of the regents who named it after the Klansmen off every plaque on campus. Or dorm or anything else named after them, including endowed professorships, etc.. Take down those statues on the south mall in honor of Confederates or other southern trash (I am thinking particularly here of my fourth cousin Woodrow Wilson) who were not Texans. Leave Albert Sidney Johnson, who was from here. Get rid of the rest of them and put up statues of some great Texans with ties to the University such as Webb, Bedichek and Dobie. And Ransom and Oliver Radkey. Finally, get that drunken jerk's name off the arena. No more bigots and Austin good ole boys.
The Link Yup, really seems the university REFUSES to rename the dorm based on this article. Not sure why this is news or why the article i found was an orlando paper ... unless you have some sort of agenda ....
Presentism at it's worst. 2010 Malcom X lounge in Jester is good, 1955 Simkins Hall is good. 1968 Malcom X is bad. 2010 Simkins is bad. Reminds me of Russia. Tsaritsyn, no the czars are bad, change to Stalingrad, no wait he is no good, did bad things, change to Volgograd, everybody likes the river. St Petersburg, no the czars are bad, change to Leningrad, no wait he is bad, change back to St Petersburg as now czars are ok. Leave the names that were honored alone, in the case of the University of Texas, they earned the respect of having staues or having buildings named after them. I wish I could live long enough to see how todays presentism affirmative action and political corrrectness are judged 50 years from now. Simkins was product of his time regarding post civil war as were the founders of the University of Texas. The founders of the University of Texas for the most part were Confederate veterans that rose above reconstruction, scallywags and carpet baggers to do what was needed to found this great university and lay the foundation for the state of Texas for the 20th century.
Again, I see a distinction between William Simkins and the naming of Simkins Hall. Simkins is actually a very large part of the school's history, and I'm not suggesting that he should be swept under the rug. Had he built this hall, lived in it, or had it been dedicated to him following his death, I would be absolutely on board with keeping the name. Simkins is a part of the University of Texas, regardless of what you feel about his legacy. The problem in my eyes is not its connection to Simkins, but how intentionally it seems Simkins was evoked. The Hall was named 5 weeks after the Federal government forced the Universities to integrate. It is hard to think that the selection of Simkin's, understanding his personal history, was anything other than rebuke of Brown v Board. As such, it feels as though the dorm wasn't named to honor Simkins so much as to give the bird to the federal government on the subject of a integration. Like it or not, Simkins is a significant part of Texas' history, renaming a dorm wouldn't change that. That said, if the reason why his name was chosen in 1954 was petulance, then I think the dorm should absolutely be renamed.
Miami1994, Would your analysis be consistant for Malcom X, Abbie Hoffman and Angela Davis ? Whether it is right or wrong, people that are denied a voice and participation in their own government will seek an alternative route to power. Without the ability to vote or hold office and/or being placed under martial law, returning Confederate veterans had few alternatives to keep or regain power. Very few circles in the South during reconstruction condemned acts committed against oppressive governance , whether against Federal regulators, scallywags, blacks or carpet baggers, so it isconfusing as to what circles being referred to. There apparently were not many circles taking exception to Simkins bravado in years subsequent to reconstruction. The best leaders the South had to offer were in the secession movement. I know there are exceptions, but they are exceptions. These same leaders, when returned to power after reconstruction founded the University of Texas and were committed to the progress of Texas. Simkins along with many other southerners felt they had lost the Civil war, but won Reconstruction through whatever means available and were not unproud of it. The accomplishments of these people are not tarnished by the times and circumstances they endured.
If the bigots who ran the University in the 50s named the building after Simkins because of his Klan activities then the appropriate thing to do would be to rename the building after Heman Sweatt. And the notion that southerners generally supported the activities of simkins and his sheeted night riders would be incorrect. In Texas, 30% of the population according to the 1860 census was black and I don't think too many of them thought highly of the hooded thugs. Add in the hispanics and Germans in Texas and you have a huge plurality who would be against them. That's why they covered their faces and did their evil at night.
IvantheterribleDiabloHorn, you are offering a defense of William Stewart Simkins in the context of his history, and that simply doesn't really have much to do with my argument. Think about it this way. I have a school which excludes Native Americans from attending. The Supreme Court hands down a decision which states that I can not legally continue my exclusion. One month later I open the "Andrew Jackson Library" on campus. Now making a defense of Andrew Jackson really doesn't speak to what just happened here. The problem is NOT that Andrew Jackson was responsible for the Trail of Tears, the problem is that I invoked his name specifically to make the campus hostile to Native Americans. By making the discussion about Andrew Jackson's place in history we effectively redirect the argument from the real problem, which is that _I_ am the raging bigot. You can substitute the Irish and Oliver Cromwell, Russians/Reagan, Iranians/Alexander the Great, or whomever you like. The problem is NOT about the historical personage it is about how they were invoked. This isn't about the historical context of the KKK, the reconstruction, William Stewart Simkins or the things that he did. This is about the fact that Texas seems to have stuck his name on a building intentionally to piss people off. You don't have to defend Simkins to admit (1) we were morally on the wrong side of the argument, (2) we were being ******** when we did it. Renaming the dorm isn't about condemning Simkins or removing him from Texas' history, it is about ending the childish tantrum which put his name on a building one month after Brown v Board.
Pretty sure the naming of Simkins hall in the 1950's had as much to do with Simkins being a Klansman during reconstruction as buildings named after Sen Byrd have to do with Byrd being a Klansman earlier in life. SWAGs on voting pluralities in 1880's is amusing, as is what southerners thought in 1880's. Sweatt is already recognized on campus. Both have accomplishments to the University and both are recognized.
