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LSU Will Rename The Library Named For A University President Who Opposed Desegregation

Troy H. Middleton Library on the LSU campus. June 23, 2011.
Tim Johnson
/
Flickr
Troy H. Middleton Library on the LSU campus. June 23, 2011.

Louisiana State University will rename Middleton Library pending board approval.

The library is currently named after Troy H. Middleton, a former LSU president who opposed desegregating the university.

The proposed change would include removing the bust of Middleton and anything associated with his name in the building. The announcement came Wednesday night, shortly after LSU officials met with Black student leaders to discuss ways to support racial justice on campus.

There is currently a petition to rename the library after Pinkie Gordon Lane, the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. from LSU. Lane was the first Black person to be appointed Louisiana State Poet Laureate. Her second collection of poetry, The Mystic Female, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

Copyright 2020 WRKF

Aubri Juhasz is a news assistant for NPR's All Things Considered.
Aubri Juhasz
Aubri Juhasz is the education reporter for New Orleans Public Radio. Before coming to New Orleans, she was a producer for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She helped lead the show's technology and book coverage and reported her own feature stories, including the surge in cycling deaths in New York City and the decision by some states to offer competitive video gaming to high school students as an extracurricular activity.