Two Virginia Tech dorms built in the 1960s and named after men who espoused white supremacist views will now be named for Black people who fought for the right to be on Tech’s campus.
Lee Hall will be renamed for William and Janie Hoge, a Black couple who hosted several African American students in their Blacksburg home in the 1950s.
Since first admitting a Black undergraduate in 1953, the university had denied campus housing to Black students. That changed after James Leslie Whitehurst Jr., a 1963 graduate, became the first Black student allowed to live on campus in 1961.
Barringer Hall will be renamed to honor Whitehurst, who in 1970 became the first Black member of Tech’s board of visitors.
Members of the board’s executive committee on Thursday voted for the name changes, after President Tim Sands tasked the Council on Virginia Tech History in June to review the name of Lee Hall.
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The full board is expected to approve the new names at its meeting Aug. 23-25.
Students, faculty and others called for Lee Hall to be renamed after the May 25 killing of George Floyd galvanized the nation around issues of racism, police brutality and historical inequity.
Named for Claudius Lee, an 1896 alumnus and electrical engineering professor, the dormitory had faced several calls to be renamed ever since history students in the 1990s discovered a yearbook claiming Lee as a campus leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Although the university had previously dismissed the connection as a possible 19th-century hoax, Lee was also listed in the yearbook as belonging to the Pittsylvania Club, whose logo involves a Black man hanging from a tree.
In its discussion of Lee Hall, the Council on Virginia Tech History also recommended the university consider renaming Barringer Hall.
Paul Barringer, who served as Tech’s president from 1907 to 1913, promoted eugenics, advocated for political disenfranchisement of African Americans and once wrote that slavery had improved Black people.
“The previous names on these two residence halls — the temporary homes of many of our students of color in recent years — were inconsistent with the rich heritage and increasingly diverse community that is Virginia Tech,” Sands said in a statement.
“Because the Council sought input from existing groups, commissions, faculty, staff, students, and alumni within the university community, it helped us arrive, in a unified voice, at today’s decision.”
Tech’s Commemorative Tributes Committee endorsed the council’s recommendation, which then informed the resolutions headed to the board of visitors.
Hoge Hall is home to two residential groups for engineering students, which the university noted is appropriate because that was “the area of study that the students staying with the Hoges were required to follow if they wished to remain enrolled at VPI.”
Born in the 1880s to formerly enslaved parents, the Hoges hosted Irving L. Peddrew III, the first Black undergraduate admitted at Tech, in 1953. (In 2003, Tech renamed and dedicated a building to Peddrew and Charlie Yates, the first Black student to graduate from Tech.)
The Hoges would host several more students until 1959. Janie Hoge died in 1960 and William Hoge moved to Norfolk, where he died in 1964, according to the university.
“The Hoge name represents the broad array of people who, in so many roles throughout the years and in untold ways, provided essential support for our first Black students,” Sands said.
“By naming this residence hall for William and Janie Hoge, it also acknowledges the many important connections between campus and community.”
Whitehurst, with help from the Montgomery County’s commonwealth’s attorney, filed an injunction under the Civil Rights Act of 1954 after Tech banned him from joining the football team, according to a Virginia Tech magazine story. He would file several more legal challenges while facing discrimination at Tech.
After graduation in 1963, Whitehurst became a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot in Vietnam. He later ran a private law firm in Richmond and served on Tech’s board of visitors from 1970 to 1974. He died in 2013.
Sands called Whitehurst “a forceful voice for effective change” and “an inspiration to our students and all members of our community.”
In other business, Tech trustees on Thursday also approved changes to the university’s sexual harassment policies to comply with new federal rules that go into effect Friday.
The regulations redefine “sexual harassment,” limit universities’ jurisdiction over potential sexual misconduct cases and requires colleges to outline how allegations are handled, to include a live hearing and cross-examination.
More than a dozen states, including Virginia, had sued to block the new rules from taking effect, arguing that they weaken Obama-era protections against sexual harassment.
A circuit court judge in D.C. on Wednesday denied that request.
“Is the bar now higher for complainants with these new policies?” board member Greta Harris asked Kay Heidbreder, a member of Tech’s legal team.
“That one is really hard to answer,” said Heidbreder, but she ultimately said she believes it is.
The definition of sexual harassment is now more strict under Title IX of the of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that bans sex-based discrimination in education, she said.
And the university’s Title IX coordinator may now have to dismiss a case under the new procedures if misconduct happens outside of the immediate confines of the university community.
University officials noted that other non-sexual harassment policies could still apply.
“Where before you had the same set of rules that applied no matter where the bad behavior happened or was alleged to have happened, you use the same processes. Now, the answer is going to be it depends,” Heidbreder said of the changes.
“And I think students will have some trouble understanding that.”