HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Marshall University’s governing board voted Tuesday to remove the name of a Confederate general from a campus building.
The college said Jenkins Hall, named after Albert Gallatin Jenkins, will be known as the Education Building until the board of governors votes on a new name. Jenkins was a congressman and served as a brigadier general in the Confederate army during the Civil War.
College President Jerome A. Gilbert said the board decided to “simply to no longer honor a man whose accomplishments do not provide the university with enduring value.”
“The Board of Governors has carefully considered the name of every other campus building and concluded that this is the final step in a thoughtful, university-wide effort to make sure the people we honor represent the ideals of equality and justice embodied by Chief Justice John Marshall,” he said in a statement.
The move comes as institutions around the country reevaluate symbols and figures from the Confederacy in modern America.
