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In a stunning move, the board of a Detroit public high school decided to remove Dr. Ben Carson’s name from the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine.
The students voted to keep the name. The administration recommended keeping the name. Despite both of those groups going to bat for Dr. Carson, the school will undergo a name change.
Dr. Carson attended Detroit public schools. He became an accomplished neurosurgeon who performed the first successful separation of conjoined twins with a 70-member surgical team.
The doctor was saddened by the move, but it did not surprise him. In speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Carson said:
“It’s very sad that we’ve reached the point 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?
“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.
55 of Dr. Carson’s colleagues wrote and signed a letter in support of the good doctor.
The letter in part reads:
“We, former staff for Dr. Carson at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, write to set the record straight and celebrate the incredible accomplishments of the good doctor, with the hope that more focus is shined on students and less on perceived political slights.”
The letter reminded the readers that Dr. Carson was born into poverty and raised by a single mom.
He worked multiple jobs to provide for his family which included a brother as well as his mom.
“The truth is, Dr. Carson should have dozens of schools named after him. We firmly believe removing the name of a man like this leaves us all the worse off for it, especially the students this political stunt purports to set an example for,” the letter continued.
“We hope each student aspires to be the type of leader Dr. Carson is: a compassionate and humble man that cares deeply about the future of our children.
“Dr. Carson is the epitome of the American dream. Only in our country could a poor boy from the inner city grow up to be a world-renowned neurosurgeon, presidential candidate, and Cabinet secretary. He personifies the very promise of America.
“Through hard work, opportunity and faith in something above self, just like Dr. Carson we can achieve anything we set our minds to,” the letter said.
In a world where people like Dr. Carson should be a shining example of what one can aspire to be, he is being treated like a pariah for one reason only: He has an R next to his name rather than a D.
