Education
Chicago’s Cesar E. Chavez Academic Center to Consider Name Change After Sexual Abuse Accusations Against Labor Icon
Cesar Chavez, a farm worker, labor organizer and leader of the California grape strike, is seen in a California works office in 1965. (AP Photo, George Brich, File)
Officials at Chicago Public Schools’ Cesar E. Chavez Multicultural Academic Center have begun a process that could lead to the elementary school changing its name following bombshell sexual abuse allegations levied against the deceased civil rights icon.
A CPS spokesperson confirmed to WTTW News that school leaders have started soliciting feedback from its school community on the decision to consider a school name change after multiple reported allegations of abuse came to light against the former president of The United Farm Workers union.
“If the Cesar E. Chavez Multicultural Academic Center does initiate a name change, it will go through this open and public process to ensure that a new school name represents the values of its school community,” the CPS spokesperson said in a statement.
Any recommendations for a new name would have to go to the center’s local school council for review, the spokesperson said.
On Wednesday, an investigation by the New York Times found that Chavez, groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the movement, including the co-founder of the union Dolores Huerta.
In a statement released Wednesday, labor rights leader Dolores Huerta said she stayed silent for 60 years out of concern that her words would hurt the farmworker movement.
Huerta described two sexual encounters with Chavez, one where she was “manipulated and pressured” and another where she was “forced against my will.”
“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let César or anyone else get in the way.”
Huerta said she did not know that Chavez hurt other women and condemned his actions but reminded readers that the farmworker movement is bigger than one person. Chavez died in 1993.
The CPS elementary bearing Chavez’s name is a high-performing school in the Back of the Yards neighborhood with 775 students currently enrolled, according to district data.
CPS policy states that when a school community seeks to change their school’s name, that school’s principal must work with their LSC to complete a comprehensive form that outlines the process and requirements for school renaming.
This process includes submitting a formal name change request and community engagement. The new name must also be approved by the LSC, a CPS network chief and the Board of Education.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
