On December 17, 2020, a pedestrian walks under a sign to Dianne Feinstein Elementary School in San Francisco.
Photo:
Jeff Chiu / Associated Press
Until the San Francisco Unified School District board of directors removed Dianne Feinstein’s name from one of the public schools, we did not know about the senator’s service to the Confederacy. While the city’s mayor, she had replaced a wrecked Confederate flag that was part of a historic display outside City Hall. So now it’s goodbye to Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.
The Feinstein purge is one of the bans the board took on Tuesday night when it voted 6-1 to rename 44 schools. The most absurd target is Abraham Lincoln, who fought the war that ended slavery. Also canceled were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster and Paul Revere.
The criteria used to come up with the list of villains are whether they had promoted slavery, genocide, the oppression of women or “otherwise significantly diminished the chances of those of us for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. “.
But a name in a school is not a statement of perfection. And a society that rummages through history to keep those of the past up to today’s waking standards will soon have no heroes to honor.
In a statement, Mayor London Breed said that while the naming of city schools is a conversation worth having, she cannot understand ‘why the school board is putting forward a plan to rename all these schools by April,’ while there is no plan to have our children back in the classroom. “
By that measure, a future school board would have to regard the current school board as equally guilty of diminishing opportunities, especially for the poor, for the way they denied children education during the pandemic.
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Appeared in the print edition January 29, 2021.