A Virginia school district is considering progressive figures as a possible new namesake of T.C. Williams High School.
In November 2020, members of the Alexandria City Public Schools Board unanimously voted to rename the school because its namesake, Thomas Chambliss Williams, was a segregationist. Many Alexandria community members have been calling for the renaming of T.C. Williams for years, but received renewed attention following the death of George Floyd in June.
Alexandria students and members of the community were asked to submit possible new names for the city’s only public high school.
Among the choices are “George Floyd Memorial High School,” “Kamala Harris High School,” “Megan [sic] Markle High School,” and “Ruth Bader Ginsburg High School”.
All name suggestions that fit the school board’s criteria will be included in the poll. “In an effort to be inclusive,” the district is “including all names that align with the school board policy on renaming in the initial poll,” a district spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon.
Schools across the nation have changed or removed names to appease BLM activists, according to The Free Beacon. At Princeton University, the board of trustees voted to change the name of its Woodrow Wilson public policy school and in San Francisco, a public school district opted to rename an elementary school named after California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein because she raised a Confederate flag in front of San Francisco City Hall while serving as mayor in 1984, The Free Beacon reported.
There’s also a poll to help choose a new name for another Virginia public school, Matthew Maury Elementary School, which was named after a Confederate Navy commander and prominent oceanographer who defected to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Some possible namesakes include “Barack Obama Elementary School” and “Black Lives Matter Elementary School,” along with Kobe Bryant and Clarence Thomas.
The district said it would narrow down the poll results to six finalists and will announce the schools’ new names this April and officially announce them by July 1.