Court hears 'Confederate' dorm arguments

cnn.com ^ | 01/06/05 | AP

[Ellesu]

Group trying to block building name change: NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- A state appeals court heard arguments Wednesday over whether Vanderbilt University can remove the word "Confederate" from a dormitory the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped build in the 1930s. The Tennessee chapter of the group claims the university's effort to drop the first word from Confederate Memorial Hall violates decades-old contracts, but Vanderbilt claims the contracts are no longer valid. The judges, who did not say when they will issue a ruling, had strong words for both sides. "You're arguing social values and making the courts be the tough guy," Judge William Cain said when a Vanderbilt attorney argued the university is completely different than it was in 1934. "The court is faced here with a bilateral contract and not an academic freedom." Presiding Judge William C. Koch Jr., however, highlighted weaknesses in the heritage group's case, including that parts of the deal were oral and that some of the contract documents entered as evidence were not signed. "You've put your flags up and marched into battle without ammunition," Koch said. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, which has 1,300 members in Tennessee and 25,000 nationwide, gave one-third of the cost of the $150,000 building in 1935 as part of a series of contracts with Peabody College. Peabody merged with Vanderbilt in 1979. In 2002, Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee cited school diversity efforts when he decided to rename the dorm Memorial Hall.

[Ellesu]

These soldiers were fighting for states' rights and against the opression from the northern states.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Fine lberals, repay the full value in today's dollars to the DoTC 1935 contribution, then name it any damned thing you please. How about "pedophile hall," or "our commie hang out for muslimes".

[Ellesu]

Homo Hall

[cyborg]

There's a dorm named for Margaret Sanger at my local university.

[stainlessbanner]

dixiebump

[4CJ]

The University reneged on it's contract. They are a hate group!

[nathanbedford]

A year and a half ago I published the following comment, I think it stands today if you substitute the word 'contract': for 'constitution.'

1. The battle over states' rights, 138 years after Appomatox and 49 years after the court ordered school integration, is finally, conclusively, over. There are no more states' rights and it is only a matter of time until the court gets around to picking off the remaining vestiges of states' powers one by one.

2. The idea of the written constitution as a social contract is dead. It has now morphed into a manifesto which can accomodate groups' rights as they come into favor.

3. The idea that law, constitutional law, should be dominant in ordering the affairs of men is now dead and in its place we will governed by a coctail of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and pop culture.

4. The unwritten Confession of Faith shared by our Justices for generations in which they conceive themselves in spirit to be LEGAL arbiters operating within a LEGAL system and according to its rules has been tacitedly abandoned, although its vocabulary has been retained to conceal the metamorphis, and the Justices now have assumed a new role as Shamons, Priesters, Oracles or something quite different which has yet to be fully revealed.

5. The legal system will cease to be a place where rights are vindicated and become a source for the establishment of INTERESTS. To attain the establishment of his interests, the clever advocate will see that the Gods of the new system will have to be propitiated. Theis means that sucessful advocates will have established their cause as the flavor of the month in a ever changing menu of fads, movements, and the like.

6. Resort to the Constitution will be an empty exercise resorted to by fools who do not know how the real game is actually being played. This is what is a stake in the coming battle over the Courts.

[Ellesu]

Excellent! You are so right. We cannot lose this battle over the courts and it will be a never-ending one. These liberal judges will destroy America just like the terrorists will if not stopped.

[CurlyBill]

It is the left that is full of hate and striving for censorship. They are trying to ban something that they have been conditioned to hate. Unfortunately, even some here at the FreeRepublic have been indoctrinated into this PC mentality that all things Southern and Confederate are bad. I have not heard anyone from the South striving to ban Yankee symbols or relics of the Union effort. First, these indoctrinators revise history... then they move to ban any vestige of the Confederacy. They remind me of Michael Newdow, who is trying to impose his view on everyone by having God removed from the Pledge. Sickening! Those here who have been indoctrinated by their college professors (or other mentors) should be ashamed of themselves!

Long live Dixie!!

[Question_Assumptions]

You should find some choice Sanger quotes (like the ol' "More from the fit, less from the unfit" classic) and post them there for the residents to see.

[sionnsar]

but Vanderbilt claims the contracts are no longer valid.

Don't know the basis for their claim, but color me suspicious.

[Colt .45]

Naaaaaaaaaaw, they'll probably name it something catchy like "Nambla Suites". F**king bunch of whining liberal losers out to strip away all vestiges of Confederate States History.

Maybe its time to reassert that primary right of "The People" being the seat of all governmental power", not just some small select group of cretinous PC socialists.

[stand watie]

FREE DIXIE bump!

free dixie NOW,sw

[Colonel Kangaroo]

These soldiers were fighting for states' rights and against the opression from the northern states.

You'll never hear me denigrate the typical poor farmer Confederate soldier who was most often fighting for genuine patriotic reasons as he saw it. But I think that the mass of southern people lacked a real tie to the oligarchy that was the main instigators of the the conflict. As North Carolina's wartime governor Zebulon Vance admitted:

"the great popular heart is not now and never has been in this war. It was a revolution of the politicians, not the people."

Had it it been a true revolution of the people, I cannot see it collapsing after only 4 years. But after a while the cannon fodder of the rich men realized that they had no stake in what secession was bringing and then the house of cards came tumbling down.