HIGHLANDS, N.Y. (WCBS 880) -- The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has a bronze plaque above the entrance to its science building that commemorates the Ku Klux Klan, a U.S. congressional panel said in a report released this week.
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The Naming Commission, which has been tasked by Congress with renaming and removing Confederate symbols at U.S. military sites, said the plaque is on a triptych at the entrance to Bartlett Hall Science Center.
The mounted marker bears the words “Ku Klux Klan,” and a relief depicts a hooded figure synonymous with the notorious hate group, which was founded by former Confederate soldiers shortly after the Civil War.
The commission said the plaque falls out of its purview since it isn’t Confederacy-affiliated.
While the commission can’t recommend the marker’s removal, it said there are “clearly ties in the KKK to the Confederacy” and that the U.S. secretary of defense should standardize protocol for removing such assets in addition to Confederate ones.
Two other plaques above the entrance to Bartlett Hall commemorate Confederate figures, including Robert E. Lee, according to the commission, which also recommended the academy scrap a portrait of Lee displayed in Jefferson Hall.
The commission found about a dozen assets at the academy were named for Confederates. Lee was on most of the locations, including Lee Barracks, Lee Housing Area, Lee Area Child Development Center, Lee Road and Lee Gate, according to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
Another focus of the commission was Reconciliation Plaza, where the commission recommended the removal of “engraved images that commemorate individuals who voluntarily served in the Confederacy.” It also recommended West Point “remove or modify monuments within the plaza that commemorate the Confederacy.”
A spokesperson for West Point told the New York Times that the academy is reviewing the recommendations and will work with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army to implement them.
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