The on-again, off-again relationship between Michael Jackson and Gardner Street Elementary School in Hollywood is still on, although perhaps more tenuously so than at the height of the pop star's popularity.
Parents and staff members have voted to retain Jackson's name on the school's auditorium, school district officials announced on Saturday.
The vote took place after the March broadcast of the documentary Leaving Neverland, which portrays Jackson through the eyes of Australian Wade Robson and James Safechuck, two men who allege Jackson sexually abused them when they were children. Jackson was never charged with abusing either.
The broadcast was deeply unsettling for many at Gardner, and a group of parents told Principal Karen Hollis that they wanted Jackson's name taken down. There also were parents who felt otherwise, noting that Jackson was never convicted of wrongdoing and cannot defend himself.
Jackson died in 2009 from an accidental drug overdose.
A spokesman for Jackson's estate, which represents the interests of Jackson's children, had urged the school community to respect the right of Jackson - like anyone else - to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Officials decided to put the matter to a vote of the school community.
"A majority of those who participated voted to maintain the current name as the Michael Jackson Auditorium," according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Robson - one of Jackson's accusers - told The Times this week that he, too, had attended Gardner. That was in the early 1990s, not long before Jackson was accused of improper conduct with another boy. Jackson settled that case out of court.
"We lived in Hollywood close to Gardner Street School, which is why I went there," said Robson, whose family came from Australia to the US so he could pursue a career as a child performer. "This was right after Michael Jackson sponsored me to the US and while he was still sexually abusing me".
Jackson was charged and acquitted in 2005 in a separate sexual abuse case involving another boy. During the criminal trial, Robson testified in Jackson's defence that the singer had never been sexually inappropriate with him. He came forward with a different account after Jackson's death, claiming he'd been sexually abused by Jackson as a boy.
"I commend Gardner Street School for allowing the parents to decide whether or not Michael Jackson's name should remain on the auditorium," Robson said.
Jackson attended Gardner as a 6th-grader after his family moved to Los Angeles in 1969 and the auditorium was named in his honour in 1989.
Australian Associated Press
