In a picture at West Point, the nation’s oldest military college, General Robert E. Lee is seen wearing a Confederate uniform.
A road, a building, and a gate that are all named in his honour on campus are suggested to be renamed by a nationally mandated panel.
Lee and other Confederate leaders have namesakes at both the Naval Academy and the Military Academy, which are usually referred to as West Points owing to their positions.
The Naming Commission, entrusted with assessing and updating military memorials honouring Confederate leaders, suggested deleting these names and representations.
The second and final report from the panel to Congress was released this week, marking a significant development in the ongoing effort to remove Confederate symbols from public property.
The focus of some of the new plans was the military college at West Point, New York, where Lee and other Confederate army generals had monuments and campus structures carrying their names.
The panel unanimously suggested that the image of Lee that is housed within one of the academy’s buildings be taken down as part of the “paraphernalia” that should be destroyed.
The group provided many recommendations, all of which are anticipated to exceed $400,000.
The committee does point out that certain Lee depictions are permitted to “stay in situ” since they “strictly reflect” his tenure in the U.S. Army and “do not conflate” his Confederate service. Lee served as the school’s headmaster for a short while.
In May, the group proposed renaming nine American Army buildings. Currently, the team is evaluating more than 750 assets in the Pentagon, including street names and signage, to see whether they honour the Confederacy and if they should be altered.
When all of the proposals are accepted in October, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will have a little over a year to put them into practice. The deadline is January 2024.
The group, whose work is mandated by the government under the military budget bill passed last year, said in its most recent report that none of its recommendations were made “with a purpose of ‘erasing history’.”
The commissioners are certain that the history of the Civil War will continue to be taught at all military academies with the quality and intricate detail our country’s past deserves because “the realities of the past endure,” according to the report.
They instead make these recommendations in support of West Point’s long history of educating incoming American military leaders to uphold the highest ideals of our nation.