LFCC responds to disapproving letter from supervisors regarding name change
Rappahannock ‘is the only board that we know of that has taken action so far’
The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors last week became the first and only county governing body to denounce the regional college board’s decision to “abandon” the name of Lord Fairfax.
“On behalf of the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors, I write to inform you that we voted unanimously on March 1, 2021 to express to you and the State Board that we do not support this decision or the vote of our local representative to the LFCC advisory board,” wrote Chair Debbie Donehey in a letter addressed to Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the Virginia Community College System.
Chris Coutts, vice president of communications and planning for Lord Fairfax Community College, said that to his knowledge Rappahannock “is the only board that we know of that has taken action so far.”
“We certainly take it seriously and want to look at it,” he said, “but we’ve also received tremendous support from folks in Rappahannock County who have written [that they] support what we’re doing … it’s an important debate.”
Yet, Coutts said he didn’t think “there’s a whole lot we can respond to necessarily” when it comes to the supervisors’ letter.
Last July, the Virginia Community College System instructed all community colleges in the state “to review the appropriateness of the names of our colleges, campuses and facilities.”
In the wake of nationwide protests
against anti-Black racism and police brutality throughout the summer of 2020, Chancellor DuBois stated that “institutions far and wide are examining, and in many cases exorcising, symbols of systemic racism that have existed in plain sight for years. I believe we must join this conversation and focus a high level of scrutiny on the names that adorn our facilities.”
After months of research, the college’s board voted 9-3 to remove Lord Fairfax from the name because, in the words of Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley of Shenandoah County, “Lord Fairfax doesn’t represent anything we are about.”
Thomas, the 6th Lord of Fairfax, is best known for being a friend and mentor to George Washington as well as remaining loyal to the British crown during the Revolutionary War. Lord Fairfax also owned vast landholdings and enslaved people in Virginia.
Critics of the name change in Rappahannock County, some of whom were present at last week’s regular Board of Supervisors meeting, say this move is another example of “cancel culture.”
“It’s called history. Our history. The history of humanity. To try to dial it back here, or dial it back there, to perch on high as inquisitors … is an obnoxious and futile attempt,” said Ron Maxwell in a speech before the county’s supervisors last week. “The fact of the matter is that we … are the embodiment of all who came before us. They are all our ancestors. It’s who we are.”
Coutts insisted that “this is not a political decision.”
He continued: “We have no interest in erasing history or canceling history … the question for us as an organization, as a school, is, does that name belong to us going forward? … The question for us is, does that name help us in our mission bringing new students? And the answer to that, from a brand marketing perspective is no. It actually harms that.”
Not only does the name fail to resonate with students, Coutts said, but it is also geographically confusing.
LFCC VP: “We were asked [by the state board] to consider, does the name reflect what we do? And no one says yes.”
In fact, according to the state board’s meeting minutes from 1969, when the local college’s board first proposed to adopt Lord Fairfax as its name, the proposal was rejected by the state not once, but twice. The state board repeatedly “requested the Local Board consider other possible names for the college, since the name might lead to confusion with Fairfax County.”
In the discussions that followed that same year, the college board for “Region 15” (as LFCC was known at the time) made the argument that since the local planning district commission had just assumed the name “Lord Fairfax Planning District Commission,” the name would offer some regional consistency. (Notably, the commission changed its name to the Northern Shenandoah Regional Commission in May of 2001, explaining that “most people do not understand the term [Lord Fairfax].”)
“We were asked [by the state board] to consider, does the name reflect what we do? And no one says yes,” Coutts said.
“The name is confusing. … There's that geographical confusion that’s real and there are a lot of prospective students — we are a business, they’re our clients — who say that the name is old fashioned, it doesn’t excite them, it doesn’t invite them, it doesn’t reflect anything about what the college is or does. And every organization looks at its name and its brand every so often.”
Along with LFCC, John Tyler Community College in Chester and Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton have also decided that their names do not reflect their missions and will move forward with the renaming process.