Bowling Green State University administrators are responding to student calls to rename its longstanding Gish Film Theater, named after actress Lillian Gish, who starred in The Birth of a Nation — a film considered by many to be the most racist movie in American history.
The university’s president, Rodney Rogers, released a statement Feb. 20 just hours before the school welcomed Black Lives Matter movement co-founder Opal Tometi, the leading key speaker for the university’s third annual “Beyond The Dream” series celebrating diversity and inclusion.
In his statement, Mr. Rogers said the administration had been approached by the university’s Black Student Union leaders regarding “the propriety of the naming.”
Black Student Union president Kyron Smith said it started with a Feb. 10 tweet, posted on the organization’s Twitter page.
BSU shows “The 13th” at the BTSU theater and then they change the name to the Gish Film Theater...
— Black Student Union (@BSU_BGSU) February 10, 2019
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔#BlackHistoryMonth
For more than 40 years, the theater has honored actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish. Members of the Black Student Union questioned the theater’s name because Lillian Gish is so well-known for starring in The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 silent-movie tribute to the Ku Klux Klan that is credited with reviving the white supremacist group.
The university had relocated the Gish Theater from its home of more than four decades in Hanna Hall to the Bowen-Thompson Student Union — a central hub for students on campus — and renamed the union theater the Gish Film Theater.
Many black students were aware of the name’s legacy, but it became more of a hot-button issue after the name was transferred from a “rarely visited” theater to the student union.
“We have always had an issue with the name, but it was an old building that was rarely visited. It being moved to the union is really just a slap in the face, at this point,” Mr. Smith said.
The initial tweet was followed by a formal email to President Rogers, and later, a conversation with the university president and faculty.
Following the meeting, Mr. Rogers issued a letter calling for students and faculty “to engage in dialogue, reflect, and work to understand the historical complexities of this naming.
“Many regard Ms. Gish as the greatest actress of the silent film era and may also argue that she should be judged by the totality of her work according to the values of the time in which she lived,” Mr. Rogers wrote. “However, I believe her close ties to [Director D.W.] Griffith and her involvement in The Birth of a Nation requires us to reassess the naming of the Gish Film Theater.”
A town hall meeting was held Feb. 21, hosted by the Black Student Union. Mr. Smith said the goal was to give students a platform to share ideas for a resolution. Although a few faculty members attended the meeting — originally intended for only students — the responses of both groups were insightful.
In closing, Mr. Rogers wrote that a task force of students, faculty and “other University stakeholders” will not only make a recommendation for immediate change, but also address the ways the university can “use this opportunity to better position” itself to “face similar issues.”
During his visit to BGSU last week, journalist and activist Shaun King implored the task force to change the name of the theater.
“I plead with that task force, don’t be dumb,” Mr. King said during his keynote speech during the Black Issues Conference. “Do your job. Do it methodically. Do it in the way you know it needs to be done. But get it right. To show the students on this campus that you value their emotional well being more than the history of this campus.”
Mr. King also encouraged students to continue pushing back.
“When there is a place on this campus that causes pain for some people to even step into the room — that’s not OK,” he said. “So start here. Make this place better. Make this campus better. Make Bowling Green better. Make Toledo better.”
The task force is scheduled to deliver its recommendation at the Board of Trustees meeting in May.
First Published March 1, 2019, 12:36 a.m.
