Detroit’s Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine could be getting a name change if their anti-Trump schoolboard gets its way. Back in January the board suddenly decided on a new rule: no more schools named after the living.
“When you name a school after a living person whose life is incomplete, sometimes they disappoint you,” said LaMar Lemmons, a school board member. “You may not want to have a school named after that person.” That vote merely cleared the way for the possibility of renaming schools in the district, and now months later, the board is moving forward to rename the school.
According to Fox News:
“Carson’s name “could be removed from a high school in his hometown of Detroit now that a state-appointed emergency manager no longer oversees the city’s Board of Education. The board voted 6-1 Tuesday to begin soliciting public opinion on whether the name of the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine – as well as some other schools in the district – should be changed.”
There are two other schools that could also be renamed; Harms Elementary School, and Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men and Detroit School of the Arts. You’ll notice Frederick Douglass is obviously no longer among the living – which makes their rule about naming schools after living people seem a bit suspicious.
One board member has dissented from the idea, Sonya Mays, who accurately observed that, “I think there are probably other places where staff could be spending their time.” Given that Detroit’s schools score the lowest in the country in reading and math, I’m inclined to agree with Mrs. Mays. At Ben Carson High School specifically, only 9% of students are proficient in math, and 34% in reading, according to US News & World Report’s rankings.
The aforementioned LaMar Lemmons saw things differently. “Quite frankly, it is a political thing,” Lemmons said. “We named a school after an individual who is in the Trump administration.” And just look at how Detroit voted in 2016…
Just a side note: voting for Democrats all the time doesn’t appear to be working out too well for them.
Just the latest name removal?
While Carson’s name hasn’t been removed from the school just yet, this won’t be the first time his presence has been removed from a school. In Baltimore (where Carson’s surgical career began), his portrait used to hang in the hallways of the Archbishop Borders School, but that was taken down in August because school officials deemed him too “offensive.”
Ben Carson is the only Trump administration official to have his name on a school, and if it’s removed, he’ll be suffering a similar vote that President Trump has recently.
As Donald Trump’s branded properties tend to be located in cities with liberal politics, many projects that licensed Trump’s brand are now removing his name from their buildings. Trump Place was the latest Trump branded building (which Trump also developed, but is now owned by Extell Development and The Carlyle Group) to remove “Trump” from the name. Trump Place is now simply “200 Riverside Boulevard”. Over 70% of residents voted in favor of the name change.
In addition to Trump Place, Trump’s name has been removed from three other condo buildings in NYC, and from hotels bearing his name in Toronto and Panama City.
Who will be next?
