Vanderbilt University announced Monday that it will be removing an inscription containing the word "Confederate" from a dormitory and will pay more than a million dollars to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Tennessee in return.
The private university accepted Confederate Memorial Hall from the group in 1933 along with a $50,000 gift. Since 2002, the school referred to the dorm simply as "Memorial Hall," because any attempt to change the actual engraving was blocked in court.
A statement from the University reads:
"Many generations of students, faculty and staff have struggled with, argued about and debated with vigor this hall. ... Our debates and discussions have consistently returned over these many years to the same core question: can we continue to strive for that diverse and inclusive community where we educate the leaders that our communities, nation and world so desperately need, with this hall as so created? My view, like that of so many in the past, and so many in our present, is that we cannot."
About 30 miles to the southeast, Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro wants to remove the name of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from one of its buildings.