University President Wallace Loh announced his recommendation that the University System of Maryland Board of Regents change the name of Byrd Stadium to Maryland Stadium in a letter sent to the campus community Monday.
The stadium’s current namesake, Harry Clifton “Curley” Byrd, earned the title “Father and Builder” of the university during his decades-long tenure on the campus, which included stints as Terrapins football coach, athletic director and university president, Loh wrote in the email. However, Loh acknowledged that many in the campus community today view him as a racist and segregationist.
In a letter to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, Loh wrote that “values of racial segregation and discrimination are associated with [Byrd’s] iconic name and legacy” and that the stadium name serves as a painful symbol to alumni and students.
To recognize Byrd’s contributions to the university in the wake of the stadium’s potential renaming, Loh proposed that the university install a permanent exhibit in one of its libraries. He described the university as “duty-bound” to memorialize the administrator, teacher and coach’s full legacy.
He also included his intention to announce a five-year moratorium on any other honorific renaming and launch a campuswide “Maryland Dialogues on Diversity and Community” program early next semester to “align better our practices and policies with our 21st century moral and academic vision.”
READ MORE: UMD unveils Frederick Douglass statue on Hornbake Plaza
Loh declined to comment on the proposal, saying that his letter to the board “speaks for itself.” However, he added that he “agonized” over this decision by talking to “scores” of faculty, staff, students, alumni and public officials.
University spokesman Brian Ullmann said the five-year moratorium will give the university time to “take a step back” and examine policies that govern how the university handles naming its buildings.
These actions “illustrate the ideal and the challenge now roiling American campuses everywhere: to reconcile racial justice and free expression,” Loh wrote in his letter to the board.
The board is scheduled to meet Friday in Stamp Student Union at 8:30 a.m.
At the meeting, the board will review Loh’s recommendation and must examine whether the proposed new name aligns with “the purpose and mission of the USM and its institutions,” the system policy states. “No naming shall be permitted for any entity or individual whose public image, products, or services may conflict with such purpose and mission.”
The university has not yet determined the costs associated with replacing signs and other items bearing the Byrd Stadium name, Ullmann said.
In September, Loh charged a 19-person work group with assessing concerns surrounding Byrd Stadium’s name. The group, comprising faculty, staff, students and alumni, studied history, naming policies, community input and societal context in regard to the stadium’s name.
The group’s final report to Loh included arguments for and against changing the stadium’s name, alternatives to changing the name and a biography of Byrd.
Arts and Humanities College Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill, the work group’s chairwoman, said the group acknowledged that this issue deserved “serious deliberation,” and she supports Loh’s recommendation to the board.
In its report, released Friday, members suggested renaming the stadium would align with the university’s “central values of equality” and improve the racial climate at the university in the wake of tensions at campuses across the country.
The work group also noted, though, that Byrd’s views could be a product of his time period and questioned whether renaming the stadium would add to disregard or a lack of awareness of Byrd’s many contributions to the university — a finding Loh ultimately disagreed with in his letter to the board.
“We can memorialize President’s [sic] Byrd’s legacy and affirm the values that the University stands for today—without having the stadium bear his name,” Loh wrote.
The Student Government Association voted 13-2, with two abstentions, in April in favor of a bill to support changing the name of Byrd Stadium after a heated debate.
SGA President Patrick Ronk explained the organization’s vote as a comment to the administration, questioning whether Byrd ought to be represented on one of the “biggest and most public” buildings on the campus.
“It’s good for the university to be conscious about its history when it comes to racial issues and segregation and some of the less illuminating parts of its history,” Ronk said. “We have to ask — do we want someone who did objectively wrong things to be glorified on a stadium?”
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House of Representatives Minority whip, expressed his support for changing the name of Byrd Stadium and said the current name goes against this university’s “commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.” He urged the board to vote in favor of the stadium’s renaming.
“Our campus and its facilities should be a welcoming place for all,” Hoyer said in a statement. “As a proud Terp alumni, I value that our university has been an example of progress, and we should continue that tradition as the flagship university of the University System of Maryland.”
Colin Byrd, a senior sociology major and leading advocate for the name change, called on the university to continue looking at the history of segregation associated with Byrd, particularly in the context of the university’s athletic program.
“Quite frankly, if you can run and you can catch and you can tackle, you should not have to do so within the symbolic shadows of someone who would have hated you,” said Byrd, who is not related to the stadium’s namesake. “If Curley Byrd had his way, our athletic program would not look the way that it looks today.”
READ MORE: Parren J. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building renaming becomes platform for Byrd Stadium debate
Campuses nationwide are also re-evaluating buildings named after historical figures with pasts deemed racist.
Georgetown University announced in November the school’s intention to rename two campus buildings previously named after university presidents tied to slavery, and later the same month, Towson University’s interim president signed a list of 13 demands focused on increasing faculty diversity and instituting a no-tolerance policy for racial, sexual and homophobic slurs.
At the University of North Carolina, the Board of Trustees’ University Affairs Committee changed the name of Saunders Hall — which carried the name of a former university trustee who was said to be a leader of the state’s Ku Klux Klan — to Carolina Hall almost a year after university students and faculty asked for the name to be changed.
Not all universities decided to change the names of buildings. While Clemson University students and faculty claimed Tillman Hall’s namesake, Benjamin Ryan Tillman, was a white supremacist politician, the University Board did not agree to change the building’s name, according to a Feb. 12Greenville News article.
In the months since Loh created the Byrd Stadium Naming Work Group, the university installed a statue of Frederick Douglass in Hornbake Plaza and renamed the Art-Sociology Building in honor of Parren Mitchell, the first black graduate student to take classes on the campus, Loh wrote in his letter to the board.
“The planned memorial to President Byrd in the library will complement this ring of history on our campus,” Loh wrote. “These symbols teach us about our University’s past and present and impart lessons for the future.”
Chief Diversity Officer Kumea Shorter-Gooden, a member of the work group, said Loh’s recommendation reaffirms the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.
“Changing the name doesn’t automatically change the experience of students walking into the stadium,” Shorter-Gooden said. “But as a symbol, it can have an impact on the climate of the university for a student who thinks, ‘Am I really welcome here?’”
