There is a growing controversy surrounding the naming of various schools, monuments and public buildings across America. The debate involves questioning the actions of the people public facilities were named after, and then deciding whether to change the name based on those behaviors.

A recent example crystallizes this argument. This involves George Washington School in New Orleans. The school board there voted to change the name of the school based on the historical fact that George Washington owned slaves during his life. They went on to decide that no school in New Orleans could be named after any person who had ever owned slaves.

Should the namesakes of our public facilities be judged based upon the standards and norms of current society?

Clearly no, but let me add a caveat to that response. If the person for whom a building is named had little contribution to society even in his/her era, then maybe that person should not be honored as such.

Unfortunately, the New Orleans School Board went too far in changing the name of the Washington school. Washington is the man who led the Continental Army to victory over the British, giving us the freedom we celebrate every year on July 4.

It is true that Washington did own a small number of slaves at his home in Mount Vernon. It was not mentioned by the board, though, that Washington’s dying wish was that those slaves be freed. They were released following the death of his wife only a few years later.

The decision by the shortsighted individuals on the school board prevents them from honoring great Americans like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Robert E. Lee, who all owned slaves.

The era of slavery was a frightful time, not only in this nation’s history, but in the history of the world. The notion of owning our fellow man is a chilling concept that few today can comprehend.

How, though, can we judge those who owned slaves when it was commonplace? The immense contributions made by many in history cannot be erased based on one flaw in their characters.

That is the real issue at stake here: not whether a person owned slaves, but if we should be judging a historically significant person’s shortcomings based upon an arbitrary litmus test of current societal norms.

This is known as revisionist history, and it opens a Pandora’s box for the future. If we cannot honor heroes like Washington or Jefferson, who can we honor? We might as well grind away the faces on Mount Rushmore and demolish the thousands of monuments we’ve constructed for our leaders.

Let’s be realistic about the flaws of those we admire. We know they were not perfect and shouldn’t expect them to be. We would be foolish to cast those contributions away for want of perfection.

This column originally ran Jan. 20, 1998.

Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.