Becky Martin

     In Baton Rouge, the heart of plantation country, Louisiana State University administrators took on Southern-pride advocates by acting upon NAACP complaints and erasing the school’s "Plantation Room" from menus and signs in the University’s Student Union restaurant.

     "We need to get rid of those very visible things on our campus that would prohibit us from feeling like and portraying ourselves as a very diverse campus," states Christy Miller, president of the union governing board. The office of campus diversity, NAACP, African American Cultural Center, the chancellor, and the administration, among others, support Miller in their push for engineered campus diversity at the cost of democratic procedures, and at the sacrifice of culturally rich symbols, names, and Southern pride.

     The administration changed the name of one of its dining facilities—owned and operated by a restaurant chain called Chartwells—from the Plantation Room to the non-threatening Magnolia Room, commemorating the historically neutral state flower, in response to complaints about the offensive historical connotations that the word "plantation" brought up for some students and faculty. Others found the complaints to be too few, menial, and baseless to be blown up into a debate over racism.

     The name Plantation Room had been a discomfort to some of the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors to the school for the past twenty years. This summer, Chancellor Mark Emmert, acted upon the concerns and complaints he had received and approached the Union Governing Board about coming up with a new name for the Plantation Room. The Union Governing Board unanimously voted to replace the Plantation Room with the name Magnolia Room. Due to summer vacation, the student government representative was absent and therefore no student body representative was present for the vote. The Union Governing Board passed the name back through the vice chancellor, chancellor, chancellor’s committee and finally Chartwells—the restaurant who rented the Plantation Room—and the new name was placed on the restaurant’s sign and menus.

     Discontent surfaced only after the students returned to campus from their summer break. Student Senator Paul Wattigney was angered by the way the administration and board had essentially gone behind the student body’s back on a decision that should have been made by students, who fund the upkeep and management of the Student Union building. Wattigney drafted a resolution to re-evaluate the name change due to undemocratic procedure, but quickly had to withdraw his bill due to the pressure he incurred for the bill’s alleged racist implications. If this had been an issue that hadn’t immediately followed debates over the Confederate flag in LSU colors on campus, then such a small matter wouldn’t have been blown up into a racial controversy, said Wattigney. If students were part of the decision, Wattigney stated, " I don’t think that this is the conclusion that would have been reached."

     "Where will the line be drawn?" was the question asked in a student senate hearing in which the name change was brought up. Will the next step be changing the name of Louisiana State University to Magnolia State University because Louisiana was a slave holding state? Some students felt that stripping away historical reminders of Louisiana and the South’s heritage was the wrong approach. "People down here don’t really take well to when you try to take away their Southern heritage," said Christina Stevens of the campus paper, The Reveille.

     Gaetano Aloisio, a columnist at The Reveille, likens getting rid of the word "plantation," to changing the name of LSU in order to get rid of Louisiana’s reputation for below national average testing scores and teacher’s pay. Plantations and other symbols of Southern heritage are unavoidable in Louisiana. As Gaetano said, "If we all went around changing the names of words that offended us or got rid of any symbols that offended us, there wouldn’t be much of anything left."

     For other students and faculty the problem and its solution were plain and simple. "Deal with the symbolism as well as substance in order to make the environment more welcoming" said Greg Vincent, vice provost of academic affairs and campus diversity. "LSU is trying to enhance a friendly and all encompassing environment," added Dr. Bobbie Walker, vice chancellor of student life and academic affairs.

     Many students agree with Dr. Walker. If there were anything they could do to aid the comfort of their friends and fellow scholars, they would do it.

     Rather than substantive, this name change is "symbolic", said Greg Vincent, vice provost for campus diversity. "LSU has a wonderful opportunity to not only gain demographic diversity but to gain substantive diversity. I’m optimistic about our long-term prospects," said Greg Vincent, recently brought in to promote and increase diversity on campus. Mr. Vincent found it counter-productive to have offensive symbols on campus that could deter prospective students and faculty from attending and working at LSU. Vincent was instrumental in changing the name of the Plantation Room to something more demure. There’s a place and time for the romanticized "Gone With the Wind plantation," LSU’s Vice-Provost said: "In a museum."

     LSU is not the only university that has sacrificed Southern culture in response to minority complaints, nor was this the first time racial issues have sparked controversy on the LSU campus.

          • In October of 1999 a Confederate flag in LSU’s purple and gold school colors with paw prints where the stars used to be, started showing up at football games and in fraternity house windows. Outrage at being represented by the controversial symbol sparked senate hearings and finally a bill. Due to free speech issues the administration could not ban the flag, but did not acknowledge it as representative of the University.

          • At the University of Mississippi the Confederate flag was part of school functions until the mid-1980s when the University officially disassociated itself from it. Students continued to bring the Confederate Battle Flag into the stadium until last year when the university banned sticks, which were used as flag poles, from the stadium.

          • Seen as a symbol of hate, the Confederate Battle Flag has been banned from most Southern college and university football games, along with the playing of "Dixie." The word "Dixie" has been dropped from school sponsored organizations, as was the case with the University of Georgia Dixie Redcoat Marching Band, which has since dropped the offending word from its name.

          • Facing criticism from the NAACP and the national media, Randolph Community College President Larry Linker cancelled the final class in an adult education series on "North Carolina’s Role in the War for Southern Independence." Instructors of the class were accused of teaching a "slavery course" in which it was said that "slaves were mostly happy." Jack Perdue, the main instructor of the class, lamented that the course was canceled due to negative publicity and not because of any accounts of its actual content.

     Some have asked: for a school that is so keen on promoting cultural pride and awareness, what happened to the South’s right to pride? Was it replaced by someone else’s right to complain?

     In a decision such as this where the conflict was well known to the students, faculty, staff, and even outsiders, the Chancellor’s decision set a precedent for the stance the University and other peer institutions would take for similar debates in the future. Critics wonder if by deciding to listen and act upon the voices of offended students, LSU is simply allowing the loudest voice to call the shots.