NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt University plans to spend $1.2 million to scrub the inscription above a campus dorm because it contains the word “Confederate.”

The university’s Confederate Memorial Hall – which has the title etched in stone above the entrance – was constructed with the help of a $50,000 donation from the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1933, NBC New York reports.

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The student housing building was opened in the freshman commons area in 1935, and the university first sought to rename the school in 2002 because of ties to the Old South, and slavery. The United Daughters sued to keep the name, and an appeals court later ruled Vanderbilt could rename the hall only after repaying the United Daughters for the current value of the naming rights, The Tennessean reports.

“Anonymous donors recently gave the university the $1.2 million needed for that purpose; the Vanderbilt Board of Trust authorized the move this summer,” according to the news site.

Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos called Confederate Memorial Hall – which was originally named to honor Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War – “a symbol and a reminder of racism, slavery and a very, very bloody Civil War.”

Zeppos told NBC New York the racially motivated church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina last year was a tipping point in the movement to scrub “Confederate” from the building. The shooter in that incident liked to pose with the Confederate flag in Facebook posts.

“It’s a symbol that is, for many people, deeply offensive and painful,” Zeppos said Monday, according to the Tennesean. “And to walk past it or to have to live in that space is really something I just don’t think is acceptable.”

The Daughters of the Confederacy has a different perspective.

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“All it was was just a simple monument for the boys in Tennessee that died” in the Civil War, said Doug Jones, attorney for the Daughters of the Confederacy. “We think rewriting history’s just terrible. And I think it’s a very sad day for a school with that kind of reputation to be condoning that.”

Zeppos contends that removing “Confederate” from the pediment on the dormitory isn’t about rewriting history, but rather “another step toward our aspiration of welcoming and including all with important contributions to make in our community,” he wrote in a statement on the university website.

The school will now officially refer to the building as Memorial Hall, as it has since 2005, and plans to increase efforts to address racial issues through an annual conference, he said.

“In removing this pediment, we are not seeking to rewrite history or to avoid the questions that should be asked of Vanderbilt and of our nation. We are realizing the truth—that we have the privilege every day to teach, to learn, and, indeed, to make history,” Zeppos wrote.  “In the hope that our action today will become a lasting moment of learning, we will establish a major annual conference on race, reconciliation, and reunion.”