The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has begun removing monuments and symbols memorializing the Confederacy, including renaming multiple places on campus named after Gen. Robert E. Lee, an alumnus and former superintendent of the service academy.

CNN anchor Amara Walker, filling in for Kate Bolduan, reported the latest developments on Monday, noting that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had approved the changes in October as part of a larger set of recommendations from a Congressional panel.

Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann noted that this was all part of a “long process” dating back to late 2020 when Congress took a bipartisan vote to override former President Donald Trump’s veto and create a naming commission to address military facilities that commemorated or memorialized the Confederacy, including military bases, ships, facilities, and monuments.

Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland wrote a letter to the West Point community last week announcing that over the holiday break the academy would begin the process “to remove, rename or modify assets and real property at [West Point] that commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy or those who voluntarily served with the Confederacy.”

“We will conduct these actions with dignity and respect,” Gilland promised. Over the holiday break, a portrait of Lee in Confederate uniform would be revamped from a library to be placed in storage at the West Point museum, a stone bust of Lee would be removed from a plaza and placed in storage, and a bronze triptych would be removed and placed in storage. The two Lee monuments had accompanying monuments for Union general Ulysses S. Grant; these would be relocated to Grant Hall.

According to Gilland’s letter, future planned changes included selecting a new “appropriate quote about honor to to replace the quote from Robert E. Lee at Honor Plaza,” to “review the stone markers within Reconciliation Plaza” and “modify” the markers deemed to commemorate the Confederacy with “appropriate language and images…while still conveying the Plaza’s central message of reconciliation,” and to recommend new names for multiple streets, buildings, and other areas on campus that were named for Lee and others who served in the Confederacy.

The bronze triptych was especially controversial, Liebermann said, because it depicts a member of the Ku Klux Klan wearing a hooded robe.

The changes would be a “multi-phased approach,” Liebermann concluded, “so we could expect it to take a bit of time but it is all part of this process to stop the military from in any way commemorating or memorializing the Confederacy.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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