Teacher pushes to rename school honoring ‘racist’ Teddy Roosevelt
September 21, 2015
Victor Skinner
EUGENE, Ore. – An Oregon teacher wants to rename Roosevelt Middle School because he alleges the 26th president of the United States is a documented racist.
“I feel like our culture has a lot of blinders up to which narratives are highlighted (in history),” U.S. history teacher Jenoge Khatter told The Register-Guard.
Khatter, 30, thinks Roosevelt doesn’t fit well with the school’s diverse student body, and has proposed to change the school’s name to honor a black woman, because there’s no schools in the district named after black women.
Khatter – who also teaches English and algebra – has sent in multiple letters to The Register-Guard, launched a petition, and spoke at school board meetings in his campaign to change the school’s name. Khatter has taught for four years at Roosevelt, the school is rebuilding next door, and he argues the transition to the new building is the best time to make the change.
RooseveltmiddleschoolIn making his case, Khatter points out that only one school in the district is named after a person of color, Cesar Chavez Elementary, and only one is named after a woman, Bertha Holt Elementary. Holt is a co-founder of the Holt International adoption agency. Minorities comprise 30 percent of the student body, and about half of students are female, Khatter told the news site.
“I think Maya Angelou captures (the community’s values) exceedingly well,” Khatter said.
Khatter references several books on Roosevelt that allegedly highlight his racist views on Indians and blacks as the driving reason for removing the president’s name from his school.
“According to James Bradley’s ‘The Imperial Cruise,’ Roosevelt stated that African-Americans were a ‘backward race,’ and that the ‘greatest evil’ of slavery was that white men and African-Americans had to coexist, Khatter says,” according to the Associated Press.
“Another quote attributed to Roosevelt and raised by Khatter can be found in Thomas Dyer’s ‘Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race’: ‘I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely about the tenth.”
The school held an informal poll last year that found many students want to keep the Roosevelt name, and others want to rename the school after Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
“No one is entirely good or bad, so to speak,” Khatter said. “There are good things about him, but as I read Bradley’s book I became more thoughtful about whether or not he reflected values that we should have children aspire toward.”
Some students who have taken Khatter’s history course were obviously influenced by their teacher.
“With this modern culture, I don’t think it should be that way,” eighth-grader Ani Lessley said.
“It’s a new school (building), so it probably makes sense to change the name,” her friend, Keslar Simpson, added.
Khatter brought his proposal up to the school board, and is currently preparing a formal proposal packet for Roosevelt’s principal, but parents and school board members seem hesitant to wipe the school’s namesake from the building.
Taxpayers approved a $170 million bond measure in 2013 to improve aging schools, including Roosevelt, but never mentioned that the construction could come with a new name, resident Jim Hale said.
“No one asked the voters to change the name when they were being asked for the money to build the news school,” he said.
Others questioned why, if Khatter really wants to highlight Roosevelt’s misgivings, he would campaign to remove his name from the school.
“Why not keep the Roosevelt name, and keep up the criticism of him?” University of Oregon economics professor Bill Harbaugh questioned. “It’s a rare chance to remind students that nothing interesting is simple.”
Board members discussed district policy regarding name changes, which are automatic when a new school is built but not when it’s simply rebuilt. They’re also concerned that there’s not enough time to change the name because the school is set to be completed next year.
Khatter said school names should be reconsidered every time to provide the community with “a fresh opportunity to codify its values and what it stands for,” the Register-Guard reports.
http://eagnews.org/teacher-pushes-to-rename-school-honoring-racist-teddy-roosevelt/#more-50581
