Letter to the editor: Let’s bend toward justice and change the Cabrillo name

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To the editor:

I was not selected when I applied to be on the citizens committee, but I have closely followed the saga of changing the name of our local community college.

Weighing the inconvenience of the name change — particularly when the possibility of the financial cost could be as low as $136,000, and that from donations, not taxpayer funds — against continuing to honor a conquistador and slave owner in the name of a public institute of higher learning, is baffling.

Have we no responsibility to bend the arc of history toward justice? To engage in actual educating?

And through the act of making a name change demonstrate at least this small, simple reparation to the victims of Cabrillo/Cabrilho?

It is the honorable thing to do.

Maureen O’Connell
Davenport