Vanderbilt University has agreed to pay the United Daughters of the Confederacy $1.2 million to rename a hall.
The Tennessee-based university wanted to rename the school’s Confederate Memorial Hall due to various complaints by students in 2002.
However, the original donors, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, claimed the action would be a breach of an 80-year-old contract.
So, the organization sued the institution and the litigation has gone on for more than a decade.
As of Aug. 15, the school reached a settlement to finally break from its Confederate ties.
According to Nashville Public Radio, the United Daughters of the Confederacy gave the school a $50,000 donation in 1933.
That healthy sum was used to build the George Peabody College for Teachers and for naming rights, per Vanderbilt University.
Today, that donation is worth $1.2 million.
Chancellor Nick Zeppos announced that the school will part ways with the Confederate organization for the sake of diversity.
In a video profile for the university, the chancellor says that the time has come for racial healing and inclusion.
“I came in 1987, and that building has been a symbol for our own history and the country’s history of racism, slavery and segregation,” Zeppos states.
