By Hannah Ziegler
The University of Maryland Student Government Association introduced legislation April 14 that would move forward with a proposal to rename Francis Scott Key Hall.
The SGA passed emergency legislation at their meeting on April 14 that added a referendum question on the renaming to their general election ballots this week. At their meeting on April 21, the legislature also approved the creation of a petition where students can voice their support for the name change.
The SGA also passed a resolution to support the renaming of Francis Scott Key Hall. The legislature will draft a formal statement urging university administrators to change the name and promote the petition on their official social media.
This yearlong effort by the Diversity and Inclusion Committee resulted from the end of a moratorium on renaming campus buildings instated by former University of Maryland president Wallace Loh. With this moratorium ending in 2020, the SGA Diversity and Inclusion Committee began looking at university buildings that should be renamed.
The sponsor of the renaming legislation is Peter Marston, senior representative of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Marston said that the moratorium being lifted provided the perfect opportunity to rename Francis Scott Key Hall.
“With the change from Loh to President Pines and everything that happened last summer, I thought this was the perfect time to take these steps and show what the university stands for,” Marston said.
Francis Scott Key, who is best known for writing the Star Spangled Banner, was a founding member of the American Colonization Society, which sought to ship freed slaves back to Africa. He also owned enslaved people on Maryland plantations.
The SGA bill, passed Wednesday, that will create a petition for students to voice their support for renaming the hall, states that Key “systematically fought the inclusion of African-Americans into American society by using his power as District Attorney to crack down on the free speech of abolitionists.”
The bill also states that Key was only honored as the namesake of a campus building because he was a Maryland native and wrote the national anthem.
Francis Scott Key hall houses the College of Arts and Humanities. The college’s SGA representative, Matthew Ober, said that he is glad that the Diversity and Inclusion Committee picked out Francis Scott Key Hall for a possible name change.
“I’m glad that the SGA conducted this review because Francis Scott Key Hall is the home of the ARHU offices. I’m excited to see how this review process turns out,” Ober said.
He added that even with Key’s problematic history, he anticipates opposition to the name change.
“Key takes a very strong center stage within the history of our country, for better or worse,” Ober said. “As the state’s flagship university, it is expected that UMD is a microcosm of state history. Francis Scott Key is a part of that.”
The referendum question that students saw on their SGA general election ballots this week gave historical background on Key’s slave ownership and anti-abolitionist sentiments. To rename a campus building, the SGA must prove that the actions of a building’s namesake violate the values of the University System of Maryland, according to USM’s policy on naming facilities and programming.
The new university policy on renaming academic buildings requires any proposals submitted to show substantial support from the University of Maryland community, including faculty, staff and students. It also requires a proposal to show that the name undermines the ability of individuals to feel a sense of belonging at the university.
“We wanted to put out the survey to show that people care about this renaming, and that it’s a worthy change to make. This year was the time when the SGA felt empowered to make this change,” said engineering representative Ashley Hawkins, who co-sponsored the referendum bill.
Hawkins also said that Francis Scott Key has no connection to the university and died before UMD was founded, so there is no historical precedent for keeping the namesake.
“We started with Francis Scott Key because there’s really no connection between him and the university as a whole. There’s no need to have his whole namesake on a building because he died 12 years before the university was even founded,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said that Francis Scott Key should not be celebrated as a building’s namesake because the UMD community has updated values that do not align with his actions.
“The university is responsible for upholding the values of students, and this is an instance where our acceptance of someone’s actions has changed,” Hawkins said.
Marston said that although former President Loh’s moratorium was lifted, the new university policy emphasizes that the renaming process should occur very rarely.
“Even though I think this is a prime candidate for a building renaming, I’m worried that real action won’t come from our efforts,” Marston said.
He said that the university office of Diversity and Inclusion, as well as the office of the president, were aware of this legislative effort.
Featured image: Students will voice their concerns this month about whether Francis Scott Key Hall should be renamed. Photo by Hannah Ziegler.