University of Arkansas Considers Moving Statue of Late Senator William Fulbright

University of Arkansas Considers Moving Statue of Late Senator William Fulbright

This is not a Confederate statue. This is a statue of a United States senator who died in 1995. Bill Clinton considered him a mentor. Who will be next?

FOX News reports:

University of Arkansas may move statue of William Fulbright, late senator and Bill Clinton’s mentor

The University of Arkansas’ chancellor has reportedly met with state lawmakers this week to hear their concerns about the potential relocation of a campus statue of late Sen. James William Fulbright – the one-time mentor to Bill Clinton whom the former president delivered a eulogy for at his funeral.

The meeting Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz had Tuesday in Little Rock lasted about an hour, KHBS reported, and came weeks after he addressed a letter to the university system’s president recommending that the statue of Fulbright erected outside of the Fayetteville campus’s oldest building be moved elsewhere to “another appropriate campus location.”

“You have to keep the history,” Steinmetz said to a group of lawmakers, some of whom are University of Arkansas graduates who have taken issue with moving the statue away from its current location, according to KHBS…

Steinmetz said in his May 19 letter that the university had formed a committee to “evaluate Senator J. William Fulbright’s controversial and complex legacy on our campus” and “to explore whether the statue of Fulbright should continue to occupy a place in the center of campus.”

He said critics of Fulbright point to the senator’s civil rights record, in particular his decision to sign the Southern Manifesto – a declaration opposing the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education – and resistance to the “Civil Rights Bills of 1957 and 1964, and vote against the Voting Rights Bill of 1965.”

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.