Duke U. takes down Lee honor

Sims isn’t the only memorial to the controversial doctor that has garnered interest in recent weeks. A bust of the ethically challenged doctor in Columbia, S.C., may soon be taken down, if Mayor Steve Benjamin gets his way.

“There are some statues on our Statehouse grounds that I find wholly offensive,” Benjamin told MSNBC last week. “The most offensive statue I find on our capitol wasn’t the (Confederate) soldier, it was J. Marion Sims.”

Elsa Waithe, a 29-year-old from Brooklyn, agreed that the New York monument to Sims must be taken down.

“This statue should’ve come down a long time ago,” Waithe said. “We don’t have to keep monuments up. Monuments are meant to memorialize. Books exist, museums exist.” DUKE UNIVERSITY has removed a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee days after it was vandalized.

The university said it removed the carved limestone likeness early Saturday morning from Duke Chapel amid a national debate about monuments to the Confederacy. A statue of Lee was at the heart of a violent protest in Charlottesville, Va., that turned deadly a week ago.

University President Vincent Price said in a letter to the campus community that he consulted with faculty, staff, students and alumni about the decision to remove the statue. Officials discovered early Thursday that the statue’s face had been damaged by vandalism. Lee was among 10 historical figures depicted at the chapel.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Charlottesville called on the governor to convene an emergency meeting of state lawmakers to allow the city to remove its statue of Lee.