Detroit to Remove Dr. Ben Carson’s Name from Local High School

The Detroit School Board last month voted to remove Dr. Ben Carson’s name from a local public high school.

The move comes after 80 percent of the 1,500 people surveyed supported renaming Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine, the National Desk reported. Carson’s name will be removed from the school despite an administrative recommendation and student poll to keep the name as-is, according to Carson’s former Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) chief of staff, Andrew Hughes.

It is uncertain if the school will be renamed after someone else.

Political activists reportedly fought for the school to drop Carson’s name over his service in former President Donald Trump’s administration, where he served as HUD Secretary.

One activist in 2018 reportedly claimed that having Carson’s name on the school is “synonymous with having Trump’s name on our school in blackface,” according to Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

Carson, whose education started in the Detroit public school system, said the move is another example of “cancel culture,” which will “destroy us as a nation” if we do not reign it in.

“Cancel culture is alive and well. It’s infiltrating. Political correctness, wokeness, cancel culture, this is going to destroy us as a nation if we don’t get a grip on it,” Carson told the National Desk.

Carson recently appeared on Fox News to discuss how the school’s decision to drop his name is an example of the “very sad” point America has reached “where political ideology trumps the whole purpose of an educational institution.”

“And we’re seeing this wokeness spreading throughout our community to the destruction of our community. How does it do any good for us to demonize people with whom we disagree and to teach that to our children at a time when the math scores are down, the reading scores are down; academic performance is down?” the retired Johns Hopkins surgeon asked Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

Carson’s former HUD staffers recently penned an op-ed condemning the school’s decision to remove Carson’s name.

“The reason that we adorn our buildings with the names of heroes is to continually remind us of their examples. Their life stories provide us a roadmap to follow, and these lessons are meant to inspire us to live up to their example,” the letter, signed by 55 staffers, read.

“In today’s culture plagued by anger, violence and division, Dr. Carson is exactly the sort of man we should highlight for our children. In an age where honor and virtue are increasingly scorned, he stands as an example for our future generations to look up to,” the op-ed continued.

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.