Hofstra University Partially Kneels to the Leftist Mob by Relocating Thomas Jefferson Statue
Jose Nino
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On June 23, 2020, Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz announced that Thomas Jefferson’s statue would be moved from its current location.
The College Fix reported that the statue was moved from the “Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center to behind the school’s Emily Lowe Museum.”
Rabinowitz declared that the decision was made “with the help of the university’s Committee on Representation in Public Spaces.”
“Institutions, like people, evolve, and come to new understandings based on the work and words of activists and leaders,” Rabinowitz stated. “It has become clear to all of us that the pain of our Black students and citizens in regards to the symbols and representation of our national history is substantial.”
However, two years ago Rabinowitz held different views, labeling the student demands at the time “a bit of a stretch to say Black Lives Matter applies to the Jefferson statue.”
Vandals have frequently targeted the statue, and in one occasion they defiled it with “DECOLONIZE” and Black Lives Matter slogans.
Student activists weren’t satisfied with this current decision and filed a Change.org petition calling for the complete removal of the Jefferson statue after Rabinowitz made his announcement.
The petition points out that the new location contains the university’s Department of Drama & Dance, “two fields of performance that are systematically structured to disadvantage people of color from advancing further or to the level of their white counterparts.”
“What kind of message does it send to current & prospective students of color?” the petition asked would be signers. The petition organizers called attention to Jefferson owning “close to 600 slaves and raped many enslaved black women to bear his biological children.”
Members of the activist group JGG!, Jefferson’s Gotta Go!, expressed similar views in The Hofstra Chronicle.
“It’s not really a victory, because they didn’t actually do anything in accordance with our demands,” declared Rosario Navalta, the current leader of the JGG! campaign at Hofstra.
Although JGG! has made it a point to get rid of the Jefferson statue, they have been willing to compromise by letting school authorities move the statue indoors. “The least you could do is get it out of our sight,” Navalta stated. “Nobody wants to see it. It’s caused enough grief. We’re done.”
The petition currently has over 1,800 signatures and needs 2,500 signatures in total to meet its goal.
The kulturkampf continues across America.
The monuments being knocked down aren’t just inanimate objects, but rather artifacts of the Historic American Nation.
If conservatives lose these battles, they can expect to lose even larger battles such as the right to bear arms and freedom of expression if they’re not willing to take on the culture wars.
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