Slave owner’s name gets dropped from Vaughan Secondary School

'This is the right and necessary decision to make,' York Region District School Board chair Juanita Nathan says

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 18, 2020
Noor Javed

It’s another blow to the legacy of Benjamin Vaughan.

This week York Region District School Board trustees unanimously voted to rename Vaughan Secondary School, after a months long campaign from community members who pushed for the change amidst awareness around the historical legacy of the 18th-century slave owner.

“We wanted the school to know the history and legacy of this man, and wanted students to enter a building feeling proud of what the school stood for,” said Shernett Martin, the executive director of the Vaughan African Canadian Association, who has been leading this effort to see the school change its name. “The school board has been purporting to the do the work of anti-Black racism, so we felt like this is was a way to hold them accountable,” said Martin, who said that an email campaign, a petition from 300 students, and support from staff at the school had led to this effort.

In a statement on the board website, chair Juanita Nathan said the board wanted students, staff and families to “feel proud of being a part of this school and a school community.”

“We recognize that the association with Benjamin Vaughan causes hurt and harm to members of our school community. We are committed to creating a safe, equitable and inclusive environment for all of our students,” said Nathan. “This is the right and necessary decision to make.”

Nathan said the process for selecting a new name would be made by trustees in conjunction with students and families from the impacted schools, as well as the equity and inclusivity advisory committee and community partners.

By Wednesday morning, “Vaughan” had already been removed from the sign in front of the school.

Since the summer, the city of Vaughan has been struggling with how to reconcile its name with the historical legacy of Benjamin Vaughan, a British landowner and slave owner the city was named after.

Earlier this year, the city’s heritage committee passed a motion asking the city to change the name of Benjamin Vaughan Day -- as the city had named the August civic holiday a few years earlier -- after a historical search revealed Vaughan was both an owner of slaves personally and a parliamentarian who “vehemently opposed the emancipation of slaves,” saying it would lead to the end of civilization in his homeland of Jamaica.

As a result, in June, the city replaced Benjamin Vaughan Day with John Graves Simcoe Day, and also renamed the Benjamin Vaughan Complex to Jean Augustine Complex, after the first African Canadian woman elected to Parliament and appointed to the federal cabinet.

Around that time that debate was happening in city hall, Ariana Magliocco founded the Instagram page “Who is Benjamin Vaughan?” to bring awareness around the city’s history.

“To me, this is an opportunity to open up larger conversations around systemic racism and anti-Black racism that exists with the YRDSB,” said Magliocco, also a coordinator for Italian-Canadians for Black Lives, “So having a school renamed opens up a conversation around the work that still needs to be done,” she said.

Martin said that among the names VACA has put forward for the school -- which opened in 1989 -- include: Eva Smith, named after a Black woman who started a homeless shelter in Toronto; and civil-rights activist Dudley Laws.