The Franciscan Order was establish by St. Francis of Assisi.

The order is the same one that Friar Junipero Serra belonged.

He’s the same Serra that fourth graders in California are taught about, including those in the San Francisco Unified School District.

The question that needs to be asked of the trustees of the school district is why they haven’t changed their name?

San Francisco takes its name from the mission founded and named in St. Francis’ honor by Serra.

Serra was granted sainthood for converting 80,000 indigenous Californians into the Catholic faith. The backstory of how he built the 21 missions involved forcing the native populace to go to the missions and then not allowing them to leave. They were forced to labor to build the mission’s farming system, were fed atrociously, and separated from close family.

If they tried to leave they were shackled and beaten.

Serra — and by extension the Franciscan order — condoned slavery.

So how in today’s world of Politically Correct Cancel Culture is it OK to strip the names off of schools that were named after those who had slaves or harbored racist thoughts by today’s sensibilities regardless of what else they might have done when it involves Black Americans but those who committed similar atrocities and had similar thoughts about Native Americans are still honored by having their names grace public institutions?

The San Francisco school board voted 6-1 Tuesday to change 44 names of schools — about a third of the overall campuses in California’s sixth largest public school district that has 61,000 students.

To their credit or discredit depending upon how you view the PC-driven sanitizing of names from the public square, they did include a school named after Serra as well as Abraham Lincoln High School.

Surprised? Don’t be. Based on his orders, Lincoln’s administration removed countless indigenous Americans from their land to build the transcontinental railroad, forced a 450-mile march of Navajos and Mescalero Apaches from New Mexico, and had at least two massacres of Native Americans.

So between Serra and Lincoln it is clear that the San Francisco school board members are somewhat concerned about not honoring those associated with slavery and/or genocide of indigenous Americans.

But given this is guilt by association, how does St. Francis avoid the same treatment? After all it was an order that he founded whose treatment of indigenous Californians was ruthless. Slave labor was even used to tend to the mission built in St. Francis’ honor.

Besides how can you honor a religious organization that played a pivotal role in spreading disease that basically was genocide by wiping out most of the native Californians who were thriving before the Franciscan Order founded by St. Francis shows up?

San Francisco wouldn’t have a school named after Christopher Columbus for the same reason so why should the district keep its name?

Yes, that is guilt by association. But then again that is exactly what earned some of the historic and current public figures placement on the list the board approved to scrub their names from school buildings.

Dianne Feinstein is an example. The U.S. Senator is no longer liberal enough to be revered in the city she once led and helped break down barriers. Feinstein earned a spot on the list by not espousing racial hatred, committing acts of racism, owning slaves, or supporting slavery. Feinstein was considered roadkill in the Era of Cancel Culture for one incident back in 1984 when she was San Francisco’s mayor. A Confederate flag that was part of a historical display has been removed in an act of vandalism and she ordered it replaced. But then several days later when it was removed again she did not have it replaced.

Whoever they name the 44 schools they are cleansing the names from, the district might want to make sure that — regardless of their skin tone — that they never watched the “Duke of Hazards”, drank from a Dixie Cup, or sang any song that even has the whiff of the Old South including college fight songs.

Feinstein’s inclusion on the list raises a serious question about how low the threshold is to be cancelled today by self-righteous PC efforts.

Certainly if a fine tooth comb is used to find something as “egregious” as the 1984 flag incident without any other questionable acts or words popping up to justify cancelling Feinstein, there clearly is an argument that an entire order founded on the principles of one man found it OK to practice slavery and genocide regardless of their take on such actions back in 1769 to 1833 when the 21 missions were established needs to be erased from schools as well.

San Francisco needs to be removed from the school district’s name given it celebrates both a religious order tied to slavery and genocide in their own backyard.

Basically if the name of Dianne Feinstein Elementary School must be scrapped on the altar of political correctness then the case to do so for the name San Francisco Unified School District is even stronger.

Heck, just the fact the Catholic Church doesn’t meet the PC view on abortion should mean San Francisco is a name that cancel culture can’t allow to continue gracing a school district based on the logic being used to get rid of George Washington, John Muir, and Herbert Hoover.

If you doubt that, check out a poll the San Francisco Chronicle conducted on Wednesday, the day after the board vote. They asked readers to identify which of the 44 schools targeted for a name change would be at the top of their hit list. They received 6,081 responses.

Topping the list with 510 votes was Dianne Feinstein, followed by Junipero Serra with 420 and Herbert Hoover with 320.

The fact Feinstein — clearly the least offensive by the ground rules the school district created for a committee to recommend what campus names should be cancelled — topped the poll tells you a thing or two about what is driving the name purge.

Feinstein’s crime against humanity isn’t an isolated incident that you had to dig deep into the haystack to find. Her sins are the fact she is not liberal enough for sensibilities of today’s PC class in San Francisco.

The fact the poll showed wide spread support of making Father Serra San Francisco’s Public Enemy No. 2 when it comes to the sins of either racism, slavery and/or genocide behind Feinstein makes it logical that naming anything school related after anything to do with Serra is a crass violation of cancel culture sensibilities.

It’s time that San Francisco Unified falls on the PC pyre.

An appropriate rename could be the Yerba Buena Unified School District.

What could be more appropriate than a name that translates into “Good Herb” Unified School District given it was also the original name of the outpost that became the City of San Francisco?

They could even use a famous herb as their logo.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com