Detroit school board votes to remove Dr. Ben Carson’s name from … – WWJ
DETROIT (WWJ) The Detroit School Board voted to remove the name of Dr. Ben Carson, who was born and raised in the city, from a local high school.
The vote to rename the former Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine, on Mack just across the street from Children’s Hospital of Michigan, happened in mid-November. However, the final decision has only recently hit the press.
The push to remove his name from the school started in 2018 during a Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) review of the names of its institutions—and was backed by Democrat lawmakers in Detroit. It was the year after Dr. Carson joined the Trump administration as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Dr. Carson’s list of accomplishments is long.
Growing up in poverty, he struggled academically through his early school years, but ultimately earned a full scholarship to Yale.
In 1984, at 33, he became the youngest pediatric chief of neurosurgery in the history of the U.S. when he was promoted to the position at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1987, he became the first neurosurgeon to lead a team of dozens of surgeons to separate twins conjoined at the head. Both boys survived the surgery. During his tenure at Johns Hopkins, he also refined and revived a radical operation called a hemispherectomy that often cures children plagued by frequent and unrelenting seizures. In 2008, former president George W. Bush bestowed him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. In 2016, Dr. Carson ran in the Republican Presidential Primary. In 2017, former president Donald Trump nominated him to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In 2021, he and his wife founded a conservative think-tank, the American Cornerstone Institute, to advance policies promoting “faith, liberty, community and life.”
He and his wife also started a non-profit scholarship fund that, since 1994, has aided 3,500 children in attending college, according to the charity’s website.
According to Michigan Capitol Confidential (MCC), DPSCD Superintendent Dr. Nicolai Vitti said a survey regarding the name change was sent out this fall to members of the school community including alumni, parents, students and teachers. Of 375 responses, 86% favored the name change while 14% opposed it. Vitti told the publication he had no way of knowing if some respondents voted twice or more.
“…Many Detroiters felt that Dr. Ben Carson’s political positions and decisions as a policy maker did not reflect Detroiters and therefore a school should not be named after him,” Vitti said in the statement obtained by MCC.
Vitti added in the statement that the decision to name the school after Dr. Carson happened during Emergency Management, “an imposed governance structure that did not represent the voice of Detroiters or their vote.”
A community Facebook group in support of the name change had over 300 members.
Former State Representative Sherry Gay-Dagnogo told the Detroit Free Press: “We’re proud of (Carson’s) accomplishments, but his alignment with Trump-esque ideology helped to raise the urgency of restoring the name back to someone who had more meaning, vision, impact and understanding of those who struggle.”
Those opposing removing Dr. Carson’s name, including 55 of his former colleagues at HUD who added their names to a penned Op-Ed piece published by FOX, said Dr. Carson’s story is a testament to the power of education and he understands struggle as well as anyone.
Mr. Bush said in the speech ahead of bestowing Dr. Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom: “ (The heart of Detroit) was an environment where many young people lost themselves to poverty and crime and violence. For a time, young Ben Carson was headed down that same path. Yet, through his reliance on faith and family, he turned his life into a sharply different direction…”
That same speech also spoke of Ben Carson’s mother—who was married at 13 but ultimately raised her sons alone while working multiple jobs—making Carson and his brother go to the library each week to check out books and write reports on them.
“She would hand (the reports) back with check marks as though she had reviewed them— never letting on she couldn’t read them. Even in the toughest times, she always encouraged her children’s dreams,” Mr. Bush said during the speech. “She never allowed them to see themselves as victims.”
Critics of the name change also argued that the move enforced the idea that someone should be “canceled” if we don’t agree with his politics or beliefs.
“The truth is, Dr. Carson should have dozens of schools named after him,” his HUD colleagues wrote in the Op-Ed. “We firmly believe removing the name of a man like this leaves us all the worse off for it, especially the students this political stunt purports to set an example for.”
In response to losing his namesake school, Dr. Ben Carson said in an interview on FOX: “…How does it do any good for us to demonize those with whom we disagree and to teach that to our children…?”
The school, formerly known as the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine, now bears the name of Dr. Ethelene Crockett; an activist and the first Black woman to be certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Michigan.
The Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine opened in 2011 at the site of the then Crockett Career and Technical Center, a grade 9 through 12 school. Another school named in honor of Dr. Crockett, Crockett Technical High School, near Van Dyke and I-94, closed down between 2012 and 2013.