Earlier this month, university officials announced that Washington and Lee University will keep its name. After calls from students and faculty, university leaders have dismissed a vote in favor of changing the school’s name. The administration also announced millions of funding for scholarships and plans to establish an academic center for the study of race relations in the South. Read more about the decision to preserve its name here.
In a more recent opinion piece in The Washington Post, Colbert I. King articulates what the University really embraces when it says Lee fostered “an exceptional liberal arts and legal education and common experiences and values”, pointing to key speeches and letters that Lee composed prior to and while serving what was Washington College at the time. King writes,
“So happens that at the time, members of my family were undergoing “painful discipline” as “property” of the Colbert and Rixey families of Culpeper, according to Culpeper County courthouse records. Even if my kinfolk had made it to the Washington College campus, I don’t think a fine old time would have been waiting.”
Read King’s column about the implications of the University’s decision here.