Last month, San Francisco’s Board of Education voted, 6–1, to change the names of forty-four schools, including schools named after Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. A committee formed by the board in 2018, in the wake of the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, had determined that any figures who “engaged in the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or who oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” should no longer have schools named after them and had recommended which names should be changed. Washington’s name was struck because he held slaves, Lincoln’s because of his policies toward Native Americans. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s name will be removed from a school, owing to the decision, when she was San Francisco’s mayor, in the nineteen-eighties, to replace a Confederate flag that was part of a Civic Center display and had been taken down by a protester. (A spokesperson for Feinstein said that the city’s parks department replaced the flag “on its own accord.” She later had it replaced with a Union flag.) Some of the committee’s recommendations have received more criticism than others: Paul Revere Elementary School will be renamed because of his role in the Penobscot Expedition of 1779, an assault on a British fort that the committee claimed, incorrectly, was intended to colonize the Penobscot people.
On Tuesday, I spoke with Gabriela López, the head of the San Francisco Board of Education, about the decision. López, thirty, is a teacher who was elected to the school board in 2018 and chosen as president by her colleagues. In the last several years, San Francisco schools have repeatedly landed in the national news. In October, the school board halted the selective-admissions process at Lowell High School, which is known for its academic strength and has markedly low numbers of Black and Latino students. On Wednesday, the city of San Francisco sued the school board and the district, claiming that they lack a plan to reopen schools. (The superintendent said at a news conference that the school board and the district “absolutely have a comprehensive plan” for reopening.) In my conversation with López, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the controversies around reopening and renaming, including questions about how the committee made its judgments and how to view the legacies of complex historical figures.
I read that you stated, “This in no way erases our history. It cannot, and we will not forget the past. But we can honor the work that has been done to dismantle racism and white-supremacy culture.” Can you explain what you meant by that?
There’s this idea that because we’re removing the names we’re somehow removing the stories in what we’re learning, and that in fact is not the case. It’s really just sharing in our schools what is and isn’t uplifted. And that’s part of my work as a school-board member. That’s been my work as a teacher. What are we highlighting in our classes? And what are we teaching our students? And what isn’t being uplifted in our time and our public-school system that we’ve seen throughout history?
Is what you’re saying that in practice we don’t necessarily want to uplift, say, Lincoln, but that doesn’t mean we won’t teach the Civil War or the Emancipation Proclamation?
Absolutely. But, even with that, it’s talking about the brutality and the truth that is often not discussed in our classrooms. And I’m thinking even to my own experience and my own learning, all that I got through my college experiences, that we gain through ethnic studies, is not a process that we normally see in our school career. And so it is discussing the history. Of course, that’s not going anywhere.
You’re talking about the learning of history and its importance. Did the committee want historians to testify? And why or why not?
So, it’s hard for me to answer that question without just pointing to [committee statements that] “they did not want to include historians.” I think that that’s not the process that they created. They included a diverse set of community members, people with a set of experiences that contribute to these discussions, people from different backgrounds who are also educated in their own rights. So I think that was the makeup of the committee.
One member of the committee said, about talking to historians, “What would be the point? History is written and documented pretty well across the board. And so we don’t need to belabor history in that regard. We’re not debating that. There’s no point in debating history in that regard. Either it happened or it didn’t.” What do you think of that?
I think I’m trying to understand your question, then. Are you thinking then there’s no allowing for there to be that process?
You were talking earlier about how, no matter whom we uplift, history needs to be taught. Since you’re highlighting the importance of history, I was curious if historians had testified. And it seems like they hadn’t.
Right. My work is in sharing with students this understanding of our history. I think that for me, it’s important to uplift. This does not cancel history. It’s a moment and an opportunity to uplift things that we normally aren’t uplifting in our public-school system, in our society. And that means other voices, other experiences of diverse community members that would bring pride to our student body, and that would allow for students to learn more about themselves. It’s really moving away from this idea that somehow in the taking away of these names, we’re also taking away the stories, and we’re taking away what happened. We can’t move on without that understanding. We can’t heal as a society without that understanding.
The reason I bring this up is that some of the historical reasoning behind these decisions has been contested—not so much how we should view the fact that George Washington was a founder of the country and a slave holder but, rather, factual things like Paul Revere’s name being removed for the Penobscot Expedition, which was not actually about the colonization of Native American lands. And so there were questions about whether historians should have been involved to check these things.
I see what you’re saying. So, for me, I guess it’s just the criteria was created to show if there were ties to these specific themes, right? White supremacy, racism, colonization, ties to slavery, the killing of indigenous people, or any symbols that embodied that. And the committee shared that these are the names that have these ties. And so, for me, at this moment, I have the understanding we have to do the teaching, but also I do agree that we shouldn’t have these ties, and this is a way of showing it.
I guess part of the problem is that the ties may not be what the committee said they were. That’s why I brought it up.
So then you go into discrediting the work that they’re doing, and the process that they put together in order to create this list. So when we begin to have these conversations, and we’re pointing to that, and we’re given the reasoning and they’re sharing why they made this choice and why they’re putting it out there, I don’t want to get into a process where we then discredit the work that this group has done.
But it seems like we should have some sense of whether what they did was historically correct or not. No?
I’m open for that conversation.
O.K. Well, I just mentioned the Paul Revere thing. I know there was a question about James Russell Lowell and whether he wanted Black people to vote, which he was actually in favor of. The name of this businessman, James Lick, was ordered removed because his foundation funded an installation that didn’t go up until almost two decades after he died.
Right, I see what you mean.
But that’s not something you’re concerned about?
No. I mean, I wouldn’t phrase it that way, either. I think it would just require more dialogue. I know the committee is still meeting, and they’re still open to that. So it’s not that it’s not a concern. I think it’s something that’s missing without a dialogue.
But the committee member said, essentially, “things are true or false.” And so it seems like if they’re false, then that doesn’t necessarily call for more dialogue; it calls for more accurate history.
I think anyone can agree with that.
Yeah.
So here’s my piece. The real issue is how we are challenged when we talk about racism. And how then the masses come out in order to combat this, when it’s an idea that harms what we’re used to. My current situation is sharing with people very simply that I don’t think it’s appropriate to have symbols of racism and white-supremacy culture. And we’re trying to have this discussion, and what I’ve seen throughout my time on the board, whenever issues like this come out or arise, people need to combat it and try to find any problems around what we’re discussing, because it’s not something that we should be open to having a discussion about. It’s something that people have a lot of issues with.
I agree that discussions about racism and white supremacy in America tend to be very fraught. And hopefully it’s in the process of changing somewhat. I guess the question is also about how to view human beings. Just to take this Dianne Feinstein example—I don’t think there are a lot of historical figures who don’t have one incident as bad as the incident with the Confederate flag, thirty-plus years ago.
I think that we really should be seeing this as an opportunity to uplift other people, other movements, other names that were normally not seen. So I understand humans are flawed, and here is one attempt where we’re moving in a direction to really help broaden how the community sees itself and their school without needing to continue to keep names, because that’s what we’re known for, or that’s what we’re used to, or that’s what we’re accustomed to.
But, in the case of someone like Lincoln, I think we keep his name not just because we’re used to it but because of his importance to American history and the over-all contribution that he made. No?
Right. But we see Lincoln, and we acknowledge it, but we can also open up to providing other names in these spaces. I think that for me, it’s been hard to see why that is the issue. Lincoln isn’t going away, but our school district is taking this opportunity to highlight someone else, highlight someone who normally isn’t acknowledged but has contributed to the progress of people of color, or the progress of the community that we’re serving in San Francisco.
A previous mayor [George Moscone] is keeping his name on a school even though the Confederate flag was there when he was mayor. Would standards be helpful?
I think that points to the criteria that they created and who they felt fell under that criteria. I mean, do we want to go through this process further? I’m open to that. Do we want to have discussions about other sites? We said we’re committed to this, so I think the dialogue is important for everyone. That’s what I’m hearing.
So none of the errors that I read to you about previous entries made you worried that maybe this was done in a slightly haphazard way?
