The school has an entire taskforce dedicated to this, because the Republican said some things back in the 1990s that they don’t like.
Minding the Campus reports:
Canceled by the University He Helped FoundAt California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), the Craven Taskforce is busy at work to cleanse the university of its connections to the late Senator William A. Craven, who helped found the school in 1978. The renaming taskforce consists of 23 members drawn from the faculty, the student body, and the larger community, who are entrusted with a mission to replace “the name and representation of William A. Craven at CSUSM with supporting evidence and arguments.” This month, the workgroup is hearing public statements from different stakeholders. It is expected to submit a final report to the university president by May.This self-righteous movement to sever symbolic ties to Senator Craven, a moderate Republican of North County, was ignited last spring when the CSUSM Academic Senate voted 56-2-2 to remove any signs of him “to continue its commitment to racial inclusion, and to advance its vital work to promote diversity, racial and social justice in meaningful ways.” The university has targeted Craven for his allegedly “anti-immigrant and white supremacist” comments, dated back to the early 1990s.Most of Craven’s reportedly racist remarks were blown out of proportion to fit a predetermined “crime.” In 1991, the senator, ranked as the chairman of the State Legislature’s Special Committee on Board Issues, asked local school districts and hospitals in San Diego to participate in a survey to collect data on undocumented immigrants. He explained his proposal as an effort to better understand the fiscal impacts of illegal immigration on local public entities and to “lobby Washington officials … for more federal funds to pay for the cost of providing services to undocumented immigrants.”In March 1993, Craven was interviewed by the San Diego Union-Tribune, which then reported that he referred to migrant workers as those on “a lower scale of humanity.” He later clarified that he meant to pinpoint the poor economic conditions of migrant workers and that his remarks had no racial intent. He stood by his commitment to champion policies that would promote the welfare of the underprivileged, an argument corroborated by subsequent tape recordings.
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