UP Gazette

Within the next seven years, if Michigan State University (MSU) decides to change the name of James Madison College, Rep. Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain) would have Michigan State pay back all state funding, according to a proposed budget amendment.

MSU is being pressured by left-wing activists to change the name of James Madison College, which is named after the fourth U.S. president, according to Michigan House Republicans. LaFave, who attended James Madison College, isn't in favor of the name change, but if it were to be changed, he proposed a budget amendment. 

“The school was named after James Madison because he is the father of the Constitution of the U.S., the greatest legal document ever written,” LaFave told Michigan House Republicans. “The Constitution and Declaration of Independence was a promissory note to all people that they ought to be free and given equal rights. As a slaveholder, James Madison clearly did not live up to his own ideals. But it is these foundational principles he envisioned and wrote down, unrealized but striven for generations; we celebrate not the imperfect vessel that was the man."

Rep. Beau LaFave | Michigan House Republicans

LaFave argued that morals have changed since the time of James Madison, but he was still a U.S. president and accomplished many great things that helped build the nation into what it is today. 

“We have gotten to a point in society where a small segment of Americans only look to flaws but ignore progress we’ve made as Americans. Today’s moral standards differ drastically from what was commonplace and generally acceptable when our country was founded," LaFave said in the press release. "In fact, it is unreasonable to hold historical figures of the past to the same moral code as today. If this is to be the new standard, no U.S. president except President Donald Trump can have a college named after him because Washington through Obama didn’t believe in gay marriage when elected.”

LaFave's budget proposal didn't pass the House, but he said his proposal deserves support, especially since taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used to "delete history and rename colleges over the emotions of a few sensitive students who would be better off going to school rather than renaming it," he said, according to Michigan House Republicans.