In 2014, Duke Student Government Senate passed a resolution calling for Aycock Residence Hall to be renamed. Six months later, then-President Richard Brodhead announced the name would be changed.
Wednesday night, DSG Senate again passed legislation in support of renaming a campus structure—this time, it was the Carr Building in question.
The Senate passed the resolution by unanimous consent.
The move comes after the history department filed a request to rename the Carr Building on East Campus in late August and a protest was held in support of removing Carr's name. The legislation was introduced by sophomore Jake Sheridan, senator for Durham and regional affairs. Sheridan is also a contributing reporter for The Chronicle.
"All this resolution does is increase the pressure on the Administration to rename the Carr building" Sheridan said. The DSG resolution was endorsed by People's State of the University and the Black Student Alliance.
"With faith and in love for our university, which has made and must continue to make progress towards good; be it resolved by the senate of Duke Student Government, that the Duke Student Government calls for the building at 1356 Campus Drive on East Campus to be renamed promptly," the resolution states.
The resolution notes that the University has "proven itself capable of renaming buildings," citing Duke's renaming of Aycock Residence Hall. The dorm's name was changed to East House in June 2014 following student advocacy that highlighted former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock's involvement with white supremacy.
"Countless others such as Raymond Gavins, Reginaldo Howard and the overlooked workers, builders, and teachers of Duke University, have contributed to the university and espouse the values it ought to celebrate and uphold," the resolution reads.
The history department's filing recommended renaming the building after Gavins, who was Duke's first African-American history professor.
The Carr Building "stands to lose no value by the detachment of an old name," and students are supportive of renaming the building, the resolution says.
The next steps in the history department's request to rename the building will follow a procedure devised by President Vincent Price’s Commission on Memory and History. The commission was organized in Fall 2017 to address the space formerly occupied by Robert E. Lee statue and to establish procedures for examining building names on campus.
"Naming a building for an individual memorializes and celebrates the character and values of that individual, and thereby the memorialization of Julian Carr at 1356 Campus Drive implies that Duke University aspires to uphold his character and values," the DSG resolution states.
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Matthew Griffin was editor-in-chief of The Chronicle's 116th volume.