Seventy-two historians from 16 public and private colleges and universities in Kentucky want a controversial statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis removed from the state Capitol.

The statue's presence in the Capitol rotunda "minimizes the significance of slavery as a cause of the Civil War, downplays the human suffering of millions and endows the Southern cause with a nobility it does not deserve," said a letter signed and sent to state lawmakers by the current and former historians....

Carolyn Dupont, associate professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, said Monday that it was her idea for the state's history professors to address the issue.

"I ran it by three of my colleagues in the state. We talked about it, tweaked the letter and sent it out to the major public and private institutions of higher learning in Kentucky," Dupont said.

The only responses against the letter, she said, came from the history faculty of University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg and one University of Louisville history professor.

"They basically saw it as trying to erase history, when it is actually an attempt to be sure what persons are put in a position of honor," she said.