UT is relocating the Davis statue to an exhibit in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Four other statues the panel considered relocating — including ones of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston — will remain on the university’s South Mall, but Fenves will consider adding explanatory plaques to place them in historical context.
“While every historical figure leaves a mixed legacy, I believe Jefferson Davis is in a separate category,” Fenves wrote in a letter to the UT-Austin community, “and that it is not in the university’s best interest to continue commemorating him. Davis had few ties to Texas; he played a unique role in the history of the American South that is best explained and understood through an educational exhibit.”
The statue of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson will also be relocated to another outdoor location, but for symmetrical reasons: He stands opposite Davis on South Mall. The Davis statue will likely be removed in the next two days, UT-Austin spokesman Gary Susswein said. It will be refurbished and relocated to the Briscoe Center in the next 18 months.
In June, Fenves assembled a 12-member panel of students, professors and alumni to assess the appropriateness of the statues. The panel solicited more than 3,100 opinions from the public and released its recommendations Monday. Its report presented five options, four of which involved moving some or all of the statues to a history center on campus. Another option would have left the statues in place but called for explanatory plaques.
UT-Austin student government President Xavier Rotnofsky and Vice President Rohit Mandalapu made removal of the Davis statue a central part of their platform when running for office. Both served on the advisory panel and said they were happy to see their goal achieved.
"If there is a statue to be relocated it should be Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy," Mandalapu said. "Now it can be moved to a place where it can be contextualized and studied within the scope of history."
The other Confederate statues of Lee, Johnston, former Texas Gov. James Hogg and Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan have strong ties to Texas, Fenves said in his letter, noting Lee's legacy "should not be reduced to his role in the Civil War."
Moving the Davis statue, while leaving the other four in place is a respectful decision that still honors the heritage of the United States and the university, Fenves said.
The Davis statue has been the most controversial of the ones commemorating Confederate leaders. In March, the student assembly passed a resolution asking UT to remove the statue of Davis. In April, it was vandalized with the phrase “Davis Must Fall.” A week after June's deadly shooting at a black church in South Carolina, the statues of Davis, Lee and Johnston were tagged with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”
"Statues have layers of meaning: aesthetic, historical, aspirational and educational. History is not innocent; it is the living foundation for the present," the report said. "The university’s approach to changing and replacing monuments on campus should be conservative but not uncritical."
Did they remember to wear helmets for that cave-in...
Maybe “they” should remove greg fenves instead. Oh, crap. It’s austin. Keep austin weird.
Nothing’s changed over the years there. Austin is an abscess in the flesh of Texas, and UT and the old LBJ machine are the infection.
My alma mater will NEVER get another donation from me.
More American history destroyed by some bozo from Kenya and his bottom feeding ‘RAT comrades.
As a native Texan, Texas A&M graduate and retired college history teacher, I have no issue with the arguments regarding the university’s thinking on this matter. I do have a problem with the circumstances under which this decision was made. And it will be a cold day in hell if anyone attempts to move the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross on the A&M campus. Buddy Holly will be gone from the Tech campus before Sully travels.
The official UT Alumni publication, Alcalde, is named after the gentleman who was President of Texas 1861 Secession Convention and signed the Texas succession document. Later he served in the Eleventh Texas infantry as a Colonel.
How long before Oran Milo Robert’s name is done away with, like a purged Russian bureaucrat?
We need Federal teams to go to homes known to have Confederate ancestors and who keep their names and memorabilia. It all must be effaced. There can be left intact NO record of the Southland before WWI. Future history books will say and future generations will believe that the South was settled for the first time in the 20th Century as a prison colony.
Gee. I’ll bet ol’ Davis is really upset about all this brouhaha!
I seem to recall Jeff Davis was a Democrat. They’re kind of eating their own.
And they wonder why OU owns them as of late, bunch of pansies.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ...George Orwell, 1984
Isn’t it enough that UT now has black Football and Basketball coaches?
We may see a statue of V.I. Lenin take its place.