As members of the Loyola University Maryland community, we, the undersigned, call on the University’s Board of Trustees to change to “Dorsey Hall” what is now called “Jenkins Hall.”

In 1949, Charles H. Dorsey, Jr. became the first Black student at Loyola College. Overcoming the challenges this presented, Dorsey would go on to receive a law degree from the University of Maryland, become the first Black man on the Maryland Board of Law Examiners, and serve as the Executive Director of the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. Ikia Robinson’s research in 2024’s Untold Truths: Exposing Slavery and Its Legacies at Loyola University Maryland demonstrates that Dorsey’s groundbreaking tenure as a student at Loyola was an important step forward for justice at the College, and that he continued to live as person for and with others.

On the other hand, research by Alexis Faison shows that the individual for whom the building is presently named fought in the Confederate Army to perpetuate enslavement and remained an unrepentant advocate of the Confederacy’s ‘lost cause’ until he died.

Renaming the building to Dorsey Hall is crucial if Loyola is to realize its Ignatian mission priority of equity and inclusion. It is necessary if Loyola is to demonstrate its dedication “to taking reparative action by empowering individual and communal efforts to address past and current injustices.”