In 1876, a black state senator in South Carolina was hauled off by a train by a mob. Simon Coker was given the chance to pray before he was murdered. While kneeling, he was shot in the head.

The assassination was part of a systematic paramilitary campaign by white supremacists in the post-Civil War South to intimidate and suppress black voters. One of the leaders present at Coker’s murder became South Carolina’s governor and a longtime U.S. senator.

His name was Benjamin Tillman.

Today, 139 years later, at the center of the campus of Clemson University, stands an iconic brick building.

Its name is Tillman Hall.

A growing number of students and faculty members say that in 2015, at a public university trying to demonstrate its commitment to diversity and inclusion, that’s simply not O.K. ...