The University of Texas' decision to remove the three Confederate statues on its campus followed a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month that left dozens injured and one counterprotester dead after a driver crashed into the crowd.

UT wasn't the first prominent school to take down such monuments -- Duke University removed a damaged statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue -- but its stature as one of the country's largest public universities could influence others. And in a state that has the most Confederate symbols except for Virginia, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a movement to get similar symbols removed could gain momentum.

University of Texas President Greg Fenves, who said such monuments have become "symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism," cited the Charlottesville violence as a catalyst for his Sunday night order to move statues of Lee, Confederate Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston and Confederate Postmaster John H. Reagan from a main area of the Austin campus to a history museum. Crews had them down in just a few hours and also removed a statue of former Gov. James Stephen Hogg, whose likeness will be placed in another spot on campus.