A university in Raleigh, North Carolina, is considering changing its name after removing a statue of the school’s founder over ties to slavery.
William Peace University removed the statue of William Peace, its namesake, on Tuesday after a task force found that the school’s history was linked to “white supremacy, slavery, and/or racism,” and several upcoming sessions will allow students, faculty, and alumni to discuss and provide “input” on “next steps,” according to a statement from the university.
University President Brian Ralph clarified there would be 14 sessions, adding he was “confident that the name will come up as part of those conversations,” according to a statement provided to WRAL.
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“William Peace University is in continuous pursuit of being a place where our diversity is celebrated, inclusion is practiced, and respect is commonplace,” the university said in its statement.
As a result of the university striving to ensure diversity and inclusion on campus, it founded a task force that focused on conducting research in order to “identify parts” of the institution’s history that are not “consistent with” present-day values, the university added.
The task force found that Peace had “owned enslaved people,” according to the statement. A census from 1860 showed that he owned 51 slaves.
“The initial, most prominent, and enduring symbol of William Peace University is Main Building, which has served as a Confederate hospital, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the iconic center of Peace Institute, Peace College, and William Peace University,” the university said in the statement, adding that the task force had discovered that slave “labor and skill” had been used to construct Main Building.
Additional findings discovered by the task force included university yearbooks dated before 1920 that contained “objectionable” content, such as images and text that featured racial slurs and stereotypes, according to the university statement.
The university said it will hold a “Day of Acknowledgment” on Thursday in order to allow the community to “reflect” on the findings from the task force.
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“These listening sessions will allow us to interpret and process these facts as well as hear how we can reckon with and respond to our history in a way that makes us a better institution,” the university said in the statement.
The Washington Examiner reached out to William Peace University for a comment but did not receive a response.
