After 83 years and a decade long debate, Vanderbilt University will rename Confederate Memorial Hall dormitory, according to the Huffington Post.
The dorm will now be called Memorial Hall, which will be a surprisingly complicated change that involves the school returning $1.2 million to the Tennessee Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who bought the naming rights for the building back in 1933. Anonymous donors are covering the cost, the Huffington Post reports.
“The residence hall bearing the inscription Confederate Memorial Hall has been a symbol of exclusion and a divisive contradiction of our hopes and dreams of being a truly great and inclusive university,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppo said in a statement posted to the school’s website. “It spoke to a past of racial segregation, slavery, and the terrible conflict over the unrealized high ideals of our nation and our university, and looms over a present that continues to struggle to end the tragic effects of racial segregation and strife."
According to the Associated Press, the Vanderbilt community has referred to the building as Memorial Hall since around 2002, but was legally unable to change the sign on the dorm, because the construction of the hall was partially financed by a $50,000 donation from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The AP reports that this month the university and the Tennesee Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy seem to have finally reached an agreement over the sign. Vanderbilt will pay the group $1.2 million, the 2016 equivalent of the donation made 83 years ago, and the chapter will give up its naming rights to the building.
“You can memorialize individuals without taking sides in the bloodiest war that was fought over the divisive issues of slavery and equality that we're still struggling with today for those young people coming onto campus,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos told the AP.