The closure of University Junior High in 1967 coincided with the expansion of Urban Renewal. UT applied for and received an Urban Renewal grant for the intended purpose of expanding

UT’s research facilities to the east of Waller Creek.

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Instead of research facilities, UT used the money and land to expand Memorial Stadium and adjacent athletic facilities. In so doing, 350 families and businesses, primarily minority owned, were destroyed.

These families and businesses received little compensation. The residential area around UJH was destroyed.

 

With a significant part of its school population displaced, is it any coincidence that UJH was closed? The most harmoniously integrated and innovative academic public junior high was no longer.

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With the imminent destruction of the UJH/Social Work building, mural celebrating diversity, and green oasis, will UT athletics continue its land grab to the detriment and erasure of history,

architecture and the environment?

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