Student Fights Back as Liberal Group Pushes To Remove Thomas Jefferson Statue from Campus
Hofstra University student Richard Caldwell is petitioning to keep a Thomas Jefferson statue on the Long Island, New York, campus, after a liberal group attempted to have it removed.
“Last March around this exact same time, there was a big issue about this. And we made the counter petition. I made the counter protest, and we had meetings with the administrators and after three months of debate they decided that the statue was going to stay up,” Caldwell, a correspondent for Campus Reform, told “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.
“Now all of a sudden it seems to be an issue again. But, I believe this issue has already been solved seeing as how they already decided they wanted to keep it up.”
Caldwell said his love of history was the driving force behind his involvement and claimed that Jefferson’s shortcomings aren’t a valid excuse to erase him from existence.
“I’m a history major. So I love history and I study it very closely,” he said.
“Thomas Jefferson was a great man. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. He instilled many of the ideals of freedom and equality that we use in our society today. And we also have to acknowledge that he had the past history of slavery, which we look back and say it was horrible today but at the time it was normal.
“If you remove the statue you remove the conversation about it — you remove the history about it,” he continued.
“And the only way that we could move forward from the past is talking about history and acknowledging things happened, while also looking at the greater picture and seeing all the good that he did.”
Check out Caldwell’s appearance here:
The idea stirred plenty of comment on social media, and it wasn’t very welcoming.
Students at Hofstra University demand removal of Thomas Jefferson statue, saying he’s an icon for white supremacists pic.twitter.com/fTPMoieOvT
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 27, 2018
Until the conservatives, veterans unite on these issues, it’s not going to end! It should be left standing as a sign of how far we’ve come, its history. Are the #snowflakes winning?
— Sandra Kirchner (@SandraKirchner4) March 27, 2018
He also wrote the Declaration of Independence. Here we go! Only a matter of time before people call for removal of the Constitution. God help us.
— Kirsten Coulter (@kir4110) March 27, 2018
How about students actually learn in school instead of thinking they know what’s going on in the real world.
— Eric (@KanoMcGregor89) March 27, 2018
This needs to stop. He created the most important document to the preservation of our rights against a tyrannical government. You don’t like it go to another school or better yet go to another country and stop finding fault in our forefathers. He was man and man is not perfect.
— Terri (@Terri03749715) March 28, 2018
Hofstra released a statement in response to the renewed protests and said their initial decision still stands.
The Jefferson statue isn’t going anywhere.
“After the conversations a year ago with a variety of stakeholders about the Thomas Jefferson statue on campus, Hofstra University’s president announced in May 2018 that the statue will remain where it is,” the statement read.
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