LSU’s building renaming committee quietly disbanded in December 2021, the university confirmed Monday.

Committee members came to a consensus to disband the group to “give the new administration adequate time to develop its vision and set priorities,” according to a letter sent to LSU President William Tate IV on behalf of the committee. 

“The committee supports continued investment in the university’s efforts towards authentic inclusion and belonging of its growing population of students and faculty from historically marginalized backgrounds within a campus community dedicated to an environment of dignity and respect,” the letter reads.

According to Ryan Landry, the administrative liaison for the committee, members came to a consensus without objection to disband the group. 

The 16-person committee was created in June 2020 amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and calls from LSU students for the university to reevaluate problematic namesakes on campus. Members of the committee were to “review and study building names on our campus to determine if they are symbols of, or monuments to racism,” according to LSU’s website. 

The committee’s dissolution came less than a month after Tate said that he would have never started the committee in the first place, had he been president at the time. 

“I actually would have never started that committee,” Tate said in a November 2021 interview with The Reveille. “But since it’s here, I have to be respectful of the democratic process. So in order to be respectful, I’m gonna have to let them deliberate and give me some set of recommendations.”

Tate said that most students don’t know who the buildings are named after and that he wanted to emphasize what he saw as more important diversity and inclusion policies, like having a stronger plan to diversify LSU faculty and graduate programs. 

Amid Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. in summer 2020, Black Out LSU, a student organization meant to advocate for the Black LSU community, introduced several diversity initiatives. Part of that list of policies was to rename the Middleton Library.

The library was renamed the “LSU Library” on June 19, 2020, unanimously by the Board of Supervisors. Students then started a petition to rename the following 13 buildings on campus they said were named after racist figures:  

• P.G.T. Beauregard Hall

• David F. Boyd Hall

• Murphy J. Foster Hall

• George Mason Graham Tiger Tower

• Andrew Jackson Hall

• William Preston Johnston Hall

• Edmund Kirby Smith Hall

• Samuel H. Lockett Hall

• James William Nicholson Hall

• James William Nicholson Gateway Apartments

• John M. Parker Coliseum

• William C. Stubbs Hall

• Zachary Taylor Hall

LSU then agreed to form the committee made up of administration, faculty and students to evaluate building names on campus and deliver a report with suggestions to the university. 

The group stopped meeting weekly around the time Verge Ausberry, LSU Athletics executive deputy athletic director and member of the renaming committee, was suspended for mishandling a Title IX case, according to Devin Woodson, a former member of the committee.