On Aug. 11, 2020, then LSU Interim President Tom Galligan announced that the university’s Board of Supervisors instructed him to create a building name evaluation committee, saying, “LSU is committed to eliminating building and place names that are a reminder of a racist and segregated past and that inhibit our students’ learning and full inclusion on campus.”
The committee hasn’t met since March, supposedly due to one of its members, Verge Ausberry, being engulfed in the university-wide sexual assault scandal. Ausberry was suspended for 30 days and banned from attending the 2021-2022 football season games.
Yet, Ausberry welcomed newly hired head football coach Brian Kelly on the tarmac of the Baton Rouge airport on Tuesday. Doesn’t seem like much of a punishment to me, but that’s beside the point.
President William Tate IV—whose tenure at the university started in July—has emphasized “restoring trust” between the university administration and students, yet his actions have yet to show that commitment.
“I actually would have never started that committee,” Tate recently told The Reveille regarding the building name evaluation committee. Tate is keeping the committee intact, but has already revealed his cards.
This is the same committee that the Board of Supervisors instructed Galligan to create.
“Painful”—that’s how Tate responded when asked to comment on the buildings at the University of South Carolina named after racist figures. He went on to express support for USC’s building renaming committee that would eventually recommend the university rename 10 buildings. They were ultimately never renamed, and Tate has commented little on the report.
Tate talks a lot about trust.
“Why would anybody trust you? What I have to focus on is, what do we say we’re going to do? And did you do it? And if you deviate from that, that’s a problem,” Tate said to the Reveille.
Well President Tate, the university promised to rename these buildings.
As announced on Aug. 11, 2020, “LSU is committed to eliminating building and place names that are a reminder of a racist and segregated past and that inhibit our students’ learning and full inclusion on campus.”
If we students are to trust you, shouldn’t you follow through on the promise that the university made? Renaming buildings is not a laborious act; the university showed with the renaming of Middleton Library that it can actually be a swift process.
Keep the promise that the university made, President Tate, “and if you deviate from that, that’s a problem.”
Charlie Stephens is a 21-year-old political communication junior from Baton Rouge.