ESPN proved this eternal truth anew this week when it announced that, in response to the violence in Charlottesville, it was removing announcer Robert Lee from broadcasting the University of Virginia football game -- because he has the same name as the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. ESPN’s Lee is Asian-American.
Similar caution just led the University of Houston to change the name of its Calhoun Lofts dorm because it shares a name with the 19th-century vice president and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, even though, a university spokeswoman told the Houston Chronicle, “the residence hall was not named in recognition of John C.