George Fox Middle will be third school to be renamed in county
Ex-superintendent backed racist policies
George Fox Middle will be the third school to be renamed in the school system’s history, as its namesake was a superintendent whose legacy was fighting against equal pay for Black and white teachers.
The Anne Arundel County Board of Education unanimously voted Wednesday to alter the name of the school, creating a committee to suggest a new name.
It was the third time the body
had decided to amend a school’s name, schools spokesman Bob Mosier said. In this case, a name will be removed because students at the Pasadena school would not find pride in Fox’s championing of Jim Crow policies.
The first two times, names were added to honor Black educators who served their communities for decades. More than a decade ago, Harman Elementary School was renamed Frank Hebron-Harman Elementary. Hebron graduated from the school when it was segregated and had only three rooms, later returned to teach and continued as an educator in the county for 35 years.
In 1994, the board voted to add Walter S. Mills’ name to Parole Elementary School. Mills had taught at the school for 46 years before retiring.
Walter Mills and the NAACP sued the system over unequal pay in the late 1930s and won the case, with a court ruling the unequal pay scale for Black employees was unconstitutional.
Fox was the superintendent of schools at the time and made racist statements, including that his worst white teacher was better than his best Black teacher. The case was cited in the decision to remove Fox’s name from a school.
A committee established to review Fox’s legacy last summer presented its report to the board Wednesday evening, reading the report aloud for members. Fox was the district’s first superintendent, serving from 1916 to 1946.
At the time, there were districts and leaders making strides to address racial inequities; Fox chose not to and contributed to generations of segregationist policies and practices, the committee wrote.
He advanced the educational and economic well-being of white people at the expense of Black people. Today, the student population of the school is about 10% Black, the committee said.
“Examining this legacy would not bring a sense of acceptance or inclusion to these students but instead continue to build the web of systemic racism that they have already experienced. According to the values of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, no member of the student body would feel pride in the legacy of George Fox,” the committee wrote.
The board unanimously approved a motion to accept the committee’s recommendation of renaming the middle school. The motion also created a new committee that will bring a replacement name to the board. Policy for naming a school requires the board to wait until after parents can meet, propose names and vote on them — something that will be complicated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The school’s parent-teacher-student association president Jamie Hurman-Cougnet told the board that they did not view their committee’s recommendation as part of a so-called “cancel culture” but rather were doing what was right for the children.
“To have students sit in a building named for a man who championed Jim Crow and segregationist policies and structures does not align with Anne Arundel County Public Schools core value of ‘all means all,’ ” she said.
District 3 Board of Education representative Corine Frank said she thinks they shouldn’t “evaluate someone’s life decades after death using a historical perspective” more than is truly necessary. This met that bar, she said, while also asking her colleagues to consider doing something to honor alumni who may have an attachment to the name or mascot, the foxes.
“This is not a fictional skunk, and this was not a subjective one-time comment,” she said. “When we find instances of true racism, we should acknowledge it, and we should acknowledge that it requires a high bar.”
Former board member Julie Hummer set the renaming process in motion last summer when she proposed creating the committee to examine Fox’s legacy.
Last summer, Prince George’s County Public Schools launched a school renaming commission to examine the names of some of its school buildings which were named for individuals. On March 12, a spokesperson for the school district said the commission’s work is “on hold.”