students and alumni have defended the association with Lee. In July 2020, for the first time, faculty (by more than a three-quarters vote) and the executive committee of the Student Body called for Robert E. Lee's name to be removed from the name of the institution. The board of trustees announced the formation of a committee to consider name-change, removing portraits of Lee from diplomas, and how names and symbols of Lee and confederates "uphold slavery" and "abhorrent racist sentiment." On June 4, 2021, after 11 months of deliberation, the board voted 22–6 to keep the name.
== Campus ==
The central core of the campus, including the row of brick buildings that form the Colonnade, are a designated National Historic Landmark District for their architecture. The University Chapel, separately designated a National Historic Landmark, is also a part of that district.
In 1926, the poet and dramatist John Drinkwater, author of Robert E. Lee and other plays, wrote of W&L, "This Lexington university is one of the …
