University of Texas takes down Confederate statues

The University of Texas at Austin removed three Confederate monuments early Monday in an attempt to avoid controversy before students return to campus for the fall semester. University President Greg Fenves announced the decision Sunday evening and maintenance crews began work overnight. Fenves said after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12 he could no longer justify retaining the statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston and Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan located on campus. “Last week, the horrific displays of hatred at the University of Virginia and in Charlottesville shocked and saddened the nation,” he said in a statement. “These events make it clear, now more than ever, that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.” University employees also removed a statue of former Texas Gov. James Stephen Hogg and will relocate it to a different, less-prominent place on campus. The debate over Confederate monuments continues to swirl after one person died and 19 others suffered injuries when a white supremacist drove his car into a group of counterprotesters during a rally supporting a statue of Lee in Charlottesville. On Saturday, Duke University removed another statue of Lee from its campus chapel after it had been vandalized and after protesters had upended a Confederate statue a few miles away at a former courthouse in downtown Durham, N.C., earlier in the week.