UT may change dorm name with KKK ties

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A University of Texas dormitory with ties to the Ku Klux Klan may have its name changed after all.

UT officials are reconsidering a position that it would be too expensive and too large of a precedent to rename Simkins Hall Dormitory .

They made those claims earlier this month, after KXAN Austin News uncovered research that the dorm was named after a former Klansman.

Built in 1954, Simkins Hall Dormitory is named after former UT law professor and Klan organizer William Stewart Simkins.

The Civil War veteran was an organizer of the Ku Klux Klan in Florida and even gave a speech on campus promoting his Klan past, according to university officials and professor Thomas Russell . The professor released a research paper last month on Simkins and UT's practices of standardized testing to exclude African-Americans.

Since then, UT president William Powers has asked officials with the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement to form a committee to review the name change, according to the Division's website .

""This is a serious issue, given the gravity of it," said VP of Diversity and Community Engagement Gregory Vincent. "We do want to make sure that we look at this again."

Division Spokeswoman Leslie Blair said earlier this month that Simkins' past was "deplorable" but that UT had "moved on."

"To rename the building would set a huge precedent - one that could end up costing a great deal of money and time," Blair said. "We feel that a better use of our time and money would be to continue to recruit and to provide programs that support more students, faculty and staff from populations underrepresented at the University and to further a climate of inclusiveness and cultural diversity that looks to the future instead of dwelling on the past."

The past does show the dorm was named during the same year as the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision to integrate schools across the nation. A faculty council named the dormitory.

Page Keeton , dean of the UT law school at the time, brought the idea of Simkins' name to faculty.

Keeton said "[Simkins] was a man of fine character and is well respected by all the lawyers throughout the State who went to Law School during the time that he was on the faculty,'" according to Russell's research.

Russell said Keeton even wore a lapel pin in his casket with Peregrinus, a law school mascot invented by Simkins.

Former Austin Mayor Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Keeton's daughter, said her father did not and could not have known about Simkins' KKK past when he suggested the dorm's name.

"If Page Keeton had any inkling Simkins had anything to do with the Ku Klux Klan," said Keeton Strayhorn, "It would have been absolutely unconscionable to him."

Keeton Strayhorn said her father was a staunch advocate for civil rights.

"All of his life, he was way ahead of his time," she said.

Russell applauded UT's move to form a committee to review the name change.

"It's important for the University of Texas to explore this issue critically," Russell said. "I believe that any committee that they form will come to the conclusion that it is wrong to keep his name on the dorm."

Since Simkins' name became the center of conversation and controversy earlier this month, UT's Daily Texan editorial board has called for a name change as well.

"There’s a difference between being honest about our history and honoring a notorious racist with a dormitory, and it seems entirely reasonable to dishonor such a dishonorable man," the editorial board wrote.