Incoming Chancellor at UW-Madison Declines to Comment on Fate of Campus Lincoln Statue
“student activists have claimed it to be a monument to racism and have repeatedly attempted to have it removed”
Campus activists have been trying to get the Lincoln statue removed for years.
The College Fix reports:
Incoming UW-Madison chancellor declines to comment on fate of embattled Lincoln statue
Incoming University of Wisconsin Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin has declined to comment on the fate of the institution’s Abraham Lincoln statue, a controversial fixture which has frequently drawn the ire of student activist groups.
Asked “where do you stand on the issue of the Lincoln statue and would you consider its removal from its spot on Bascom Hill,” Mnookin sidestepped a direct answer.
“I certainly would need to learn more about the issue before I could say anything substantive,” Mnookin said at a press conference Tuesday, which promptly closed for further questions following her answer.
A long-standing fixture at the university, the Lincoln statue has been fraught with controversy since the mid-2010s as student activists have claimed it to be a monument to racism and have repeatedly attempted to have it removed.
“Remove the Abraham Lincoln monument located at the top of Bascom Hill and replace it with someone who stands for the justice of all people,” students demanded in 2020.
Currently, the Black Student Union has been granted student fee funds to create a documentary on the statue as part of an “activism campaign.”
Asked Wednesday for clarification or additional comment from Mnookin by The College Fix, UW media affairs spokesman said that as outgoing Chancellor Rebecca Blank has said in the past, “UW-Madison has no current or future plans to remove the Lincoln Statue from Bascom Hill.”
“I’d add that Chancellor Mnookin’s statement during yesterday’s press call should not be interpreted as a reconsideration of the issue,” spokesman John Lucas said via email.
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If he won’t answer, that’s your answer.
“Remove the Abraham Lincoln monument located at the top of Bascom Hill and replace it with someone who stands for the justice of all people,” students demanded in 2020.”
Abe Lincoln: “I regret freeing all of you ungrateful m**f**s.”
I suspect they’ll want to replace the statue with one of Karl Marx.
Is it that UW Admins just don’t understand that most of this nonsense would go away if they could just learn to firmly say, “NO”? Or is it just that the career risks for anyone who did so are perceived as unacceptably high?
(And that’s without even suggesting that perhaps students should understand that someone who died in 1865 can not be expected to meet today’s standards of PC. Anymore than these students could (or would) meet Lincoln’s ethical and moral standards. At root is an iron arrogance that they are so convinced they know The Truth that none should ever even think to question the righteousness of their demands.)