A renaming committee in San Francisco wants to erase the name of one of the most important Presidents of the United States from a school. They claimed that President Lincoln lived a life that was tainted with racism.

“Uprooting the problematic names and symbols that currently clutter buildings, streets, throughout the city is a worthy endeavor,” said Jeremiah Jeffries, the chairman of the committee and a first-grade teacher in San Francisco. “Only good can come from the public being reflective and intentional about the power of our words, names, and rhetoric within our public institutions.”

Abraham Lincoln, the president who waged war to end slavery, freed the slaves and was killed because he was now being declared as a racist by committee. The members of that committee are questioning if his legacy has been whitewashed. They’re saying that he might have done some racist acts, including actions against the Native Americans.

“The discussion for Lincoln centered around his treatment of First Nation peoples because that was offered first,” Jeffries claimed. “Once he met criteria in that way, we did not belabor the point.”

There are those pointing out that no historical figure would pass muster when they are measured using 21st Century moral standards. Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar, and director of the Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute defended Lincoln.

“He saved the country from dividing and ruining it,” Holzer said. “He was more progressive than most people. There was pretty rampant hostility (toward Native Americans), and I think Lincoln rose above it.”

But Jeffries believes that Lincoln’s legacy is really tainted. “The history of Lincoln and Native Americans is complicated, not nearly as well known as that of the Civil War and slavery. Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that Black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building,” Jeffries said.

The committee is set to recommend the renaming of a total of 44 schools by January next year.