DAMN THE EXPERTS

‘Cancel-ed.’ SF defends no historians

The president of San Francisco’s school board has defiantly defended the district’s decision to strip 44 “racist” names from its schools without hearing from a single historian.

Gabriela López talked in circles in an interview with The New Yorker on the lack of history experts and on a report that found that the board’s controversial move was based, in part, on misinformation and “casual Google searches.”

Asked whether the move — the latest example of the burgeoning cancel-culture movement — was “haphazard,” López replied, “No, because I’ve already shared with you that the people who have contributed to this process are also part of a community that is taking it as seriously as we would want them to.

“And they’re contributing through diverse perspectives and experiences that are often not included, and that we need to acknowledge.”

But one group that was absent from that “process” was actual historians, New Yorker reporter Isaac Chotiner pointed out.

López, 30, said it was “hard for me to answer” whether the advisory committee wanted them to testify, instead pointing to a previous statement that “they did not want to include historians.”

Late last month, the San Francisco board of education voted 6-1 to scrub names including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere, from its school buildings.

Longtime California Sen. Dianne Feinstein will have her name yanked from an elementary school because she replaced a Confederate flag that was removed by a protester when she was San Francisco’s mayor.

In a spreadsheet detailing the name changes, Washington is simply described as a “slaveowner, colonizer.”

The rationales behind several other name changes cite Wikipedia pages as the main source.

Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary will be a thing of the past because the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” novelist from the 19th century penned a “cringeworthy poem” about “little frosty Eskimo” and “Japanee” children, the document says.

The schools have until April to propose new names, which will then be voted on by the board.

The district’s renaming plan has caused an uproar in the community and beyond — even prompting a potential lawsuit — particularly over pulling Lincoln’s name because his “policies proved to be detrimental” to Native Americans.