'White Pride Fitness Room' uproar prompts Wisconsin school to change name

By David Paulsen of the Journal Sentinel

The River Falls school district has changed the name of its newly refurbished fitness center in response to critics who warned it could be seen as racist.

Originally, the facility at Meyer Middle School was known as Pride Fitness. The project was made possible with $100,000 in private donations, and the River Falls Journal reported last week that the name would be expanded to include two of the biggest donors: The family of Roger T. White and Royal Credit Union.

The resulting name: Roger T. White Pride Fitness Room as presented by RCU.

The controversy appears to have stemmed from the follow-up comment an official made about how long the new name was. The official said it likely would be shortened to "White Pride Fitness Room."

That detail was picked up by KMSP-TV, the Fox affiliate in the Twin Cities, which described the shortened name as "accidentally racist."

The backlash apparently spread as far as Vermont and Great Britain.

White Pride Fitness Room. That was no accident. #racism https://t.co/YXjZedEReM

— Vermont Partnership (@VTPartnership) January 28, 2016

School awkwardly opens 'White Pride Fitness Room' by accident.. https://t.co/WjPT47KcGN pic.twitter.com/rALikZc0El

— Report UK (@ReportUK) February 1, 2016

Complaints about the new name drew a quick response from the school district, which released a statement Thursday on its Facebook page saying the name had been changed.

"Any suggestion of racism, discrimination, or cultural insensitivity in the fitness room's title was wholly inadvertent," the statement reads. "To prevent any future misunderstanding, the fitness center will be named and referred to as the Roger T. White Wildcat Fitness Room or the Roger T. White - Fitness Room as Presented by RCU."

The center also changed its website from buildpridefitness.org to rogertwhitefitness.com. A similar change was made to its Facebook page name.