Welcome to

A panel of 15 FSU faculty, staff, students and alumni has voted to relocate a statute of a former slave owner who played a a role in providing the land for the University.  As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the panel is also recommending renaming two buildings.

The statue of Frances Epps, A grandson of Thomas Jefferson,  sits prominently to the right of Wescott Hall…the main administration building for Florida State.  Jefferson’s grandson helped gain the land the school sits on. A plaque inaccurately calls him the founder of the University.

“There is no one founder for Florida State University. He was on a couple of committee’s” says Students for a Democratic Society spokesman Maddie Hendrick. 

Now, a 15 member panel is recommending the Epps statue be moved , and the building behind the statue named for Epps be renamed.  The Students for a Democratic Society pushed for the change.

“He was particularly especially brutal, especially racist, especially pro slavery” says Hendrick.

In October 2016 a vote to get rid of Frances’s Epps statue failed. Miserably. Seventy-thirty.”

The panel is also recommending the FSU law school, named for former Florida Chief Justice BK Roberts, also be renamed. Roberts was instrumental in keeping Virgil Hawkins,  a black man from attending the law school at the University of Florida.   

FSU Alum Andre Gordon see’s both sides.

“A lot of the land here, was probably…probably had slaves on it. So I don’t know, are we going to remove everything” Asks Gordon.

Renaming the law school would require a vote of the legislature. The fate of the statute and Epps Hall are now in the hands of FSU President John Thrasher. He’s promised a decision sometime this summer.

Nearly 63 Hundred FSU students, about 11 percent of the student body, voted to keep the statue during the October 2016 referendum. New information on the lack of Epps role in founding the University has recently come to light.