The idea of naming a school after Marion Barry is a running gag in Jon Lovitz‘s High School High, but that hasn’t stopped Councilmember Vincent Orange from trying to honor the late mayor-for-life with a school. At today’s D.C. Council session, Orange introduced a bill to rename the University of the District of Columbia after Barry.

When LL talked to Orange in December, the at-large councilmember said he would wait on a decision from then Mayor Vince Gray‘s committee on Barry memorials. But with even that committee’s members unknown, Orange is taking action himself. Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans backed Orange’s bill to change UDC’s name to the “Marion S. Barry Jr. University of the District of Columbia”—-or, as Orange suggested, “MBUDC.”

“We should honor the honorable Marion S. Barry Jr. properly,” Orange said, “as well as study his life, both the ups and the downs.”

Orange’s bill heads next to the Council’s Committee of the Whole, where Council chairman Phil Mendelson can decide its fate.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery