Austin ISD Board Votes To Rename Schools Named For Confederates

AUSTIN, TX — Austin ISD school board trustees voted Monday night to rename five of the district's schools currently named in honor of figures of the Confederacy.

The split 7-2 vote came during the Austin school board meeting. Trustees Ann Teich and Julie Cowan were the two dissenting votes. Trustee Ted Gordon, the only black member of the board, spoke to the significance of his own vote in erasing the vestiges of the Condfederacy the fought, in great part, to preservce slavery during the Civil War.

“I will be the only African American who has had the opportunity to vote on the appropriateness of naming AISD schools after such Confederate associated individuals in our district’s history,” Gordon said. “With this motion I mean to correct this injustice.”

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Ahead of the vote, Superintendent Paul Cruz had recommended renaming just three of the five campuses targeted for re-labeling. But by the time the vote was taken, trustees opted to rename all the schools named after Confederacy leaders.

The five campuses to be renamed are:

• The Allan facility, formerly Allan Elementary school, that was named for John T. Allan, an officer in the Confederate Army.
• Eastside Memorial High School at the Johnston campus, named in honor of Gen. Albert S. Johnston.
• Fulmore Middle School, which was named after Pvt. Zachary Taylor Fulmore of the Confederate Army.
• Lanier High School, named for Sidney Lanier, a renowned poet during the Civil War era who championed the Confederacy and fought in its army.
• Reagan High School, named for John H. Reagan, who served as postmaster general of the Confederate states.

District officials next will launch a community-wide effort aimed at finding new names for the schools, a process that will include community forums soliciting feeback from member of the public. Austin ISD board members two years ago voted to rename the former Robert E. Lee Elementary School, a vote for which Teich also gave a no vote.

Those wishing to end the practice of glorifying the Confederacy have long called for an end to monuments and statues in their honor or names of buildings evoking their leades. But the cause took added currency after a woman was killed in Charlottesville, Va. after a nationalist rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters at a far-right rally dubbed Unite the Right in August 2017. Since that bloodshed, municipalities across the country have moved to remove statues and other memorials honoring Confederate leades.

>>> Photo of Sidney Lanier via New York Public Library Digital Collections