Texas School Sheds ‘Robert E. Lee’ for ‘Student Safety’
by MERRILL HOPE
BreitBart.com
31 Aug 2017
A Texas high school cited “student safety” concerns as the reason for shedding its nearly 60-year-old Confederate namesake, General Robert E. Lee. This marks the second time in a week that public education officials in the Lone Star State used the rationale to strip a slice of history from a campus.
North East Independent School District trustees held a special meeting Tuesday night where they voted unanimously, 7-0, to change the name of Robert E. Lee High. Last Thursday, Midland ISD administrators framed “student safety” to nix a few bars of the southern favorite “Dixie” out of their school fight song.
Although some North East ISD trustees said they did not agree with changing the high school’s name, they apparently caved to the “student safety” narrative amid no reported or disclosed threats. Board President Shannon Grona expressed feeling pressure to “take the target off our backs.”
The San Antonio Express-News reported she stated: “It is so frustrating to me that things that aren’t even happening in North East (ISD) or San Antonio, or even Texas are once again causing us to discuss the name of Lee High School.”
In 2015, a similar push to re-brand Lee High followed the tragic murder of nine black church parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina. Grona, then board vice president, and trustees voted 5-2 to keep Lee’s name. “We have had some who have resorted to bullying, intimidation, and threats in an attempt to change the name,” she said at the time, which Breitbart Texas reported.
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