University President Supports Removing Slave Owner's Name
CINCINNATI (AP) — The University of Cincinnati's president announced his support for removing a slave owner's name from one of the school's colleges.
The university created a commission last year to examine the legacy of Charles McMicken. The commission determined in November that McMicken's name should be stripped from the College of Arts and Sciences.
McMicken owned slaves. Before his death in 1858, he created a will that set aside funds to create a university for "the education of white boys and girls."
A month after the group announced its decision, University President Neville Pinto said he agreed with the group's recommendation but said McMicken's role as a philanthropist "cannot be denied."
Pinto said the founder's name should remain on McMicken Hall and other spaces on campus as long as it is "contextualized appropriately," The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
"I recommend creating digital displays that more fully and fairly represent McMicken so that his 'legacies and the university's relationship to him, in all their complexities, remain a vital and living part of the university's history,'" Pinto wrote.
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