Wednesday, February 22, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, February 22, 2017 // The Statement 
5B

The Push to Change History on Campus
Looking in the Mirror

b y J a c k i e C h a r n i g a, Daily Staff Reporter
I

n an opening scene of “The Dan-

gerous Experiment,” a play that 

premiered last month, James Bur-

rill 
Angell, 
then-University 
of 

Michigan president, stands before 

the Board of Regents at a late 1870s meeting 

to fight for women’s right to admission to the 

University.

As a contribution to the ongoing bicenten-

nial celebration, the play — written by LSA 

junior Emma McGlashen — depicts a time in 

University history when forward-thinking 

campus leaders faced resistance from the 

institutional norms of the day. Portrayed as a 

fatherly figure, Angell challenges his conser-

vative opponents in favor of a woman’s right to 

enroll at the University.

“What struck me most strongly, doing 

research, was the humanity in the history,” 

the play’s program quotes McGlashen as say-

ing. “Social movements of the time inspired 

some and threatened others. The students 

were barely adults, and the adults were just 

doing the best with the world they lived in, 

and that’s the most quintessentially human 

thing.”

However, there is more to Angell’s his-

tory than can be conveyed on a stage. Today, 

Angell is known as the namesake of Angell 

Hall and the oldest senior honor society at the 

University. The beloved Michigan Union was 

dedicated to him. Few, however, associate him 

with negotiating an exclusionary immigration 

policy viewed darkly in U.S. history.

Following his tenure as University presi-

dent, Angell played a key role in drafting the 

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 while serving as 

U.S. minister to China. Renamed “The Angell 

Treaty,” it became the first comprehensive 

law limiting immigration to the United States. 

The treaty led to a decade-long moratorium on 

Chinese laborers and restricted those who had 

already migrated in response to racial preju-

dice and anger over wage competition on the 

West Coast. Chinese immi-

gration would be effectively 

banned until 1943.

*****

Campuses 
across 
the 

nation have been roiled by 

the question of historical 

revisionism, or the desire 

to reconcile modern moral-

ity with the darker points 

of an academic institution’s 

history.

At Yale University, stu-

dents staged a sit-in at 

Calhoun College in protest 

of the school’s namesake, 

alum John C. Calhoun the 

seventh vice president of 

the U.S., who championed 

slavery as a “positive good.” 

Earlier this month, Yale 

administrators agreed to 

rename the college after 

Grace Hopper, a Yale alum, 

computer science pioneer 

and Navy admiral.

In late 2015, Princeton 

University students chal-

lenged the name of the uni-

versity’s Woodrow Wilson 

School of Public and Inter-

national 
Affairs. 
Though 

Wilson — who served as pres-

ident of both Princeton and 

later the United States — was a champion of 

national self-determination and democracy 

abroad, his administration pursued domestic 

segregationist policies far more aggressive 

than those of his predecessors. In spite of the 

president’s controversial policies, Princeton’s 

board of trustees declined to rename the 

school in April 2016.

Debates surrounding the renaming of Uni-

versity buildings raise an uneasy question: 

How can the dark episodes of American his-

tory be reconciled with the country’s current 

values?

Former LSA Dean Terrence McDonald, a 

professor of history and director of the Bent-

ley Historical Library, currently serves as 

chairman of the President’s Advisory Com-

mittee on University History, which was 

commissioned by University President Mark 

Schlissel in the spring of 2016 to draft guide-

lines for renaming University buildings.

The committee released a memo in Janu-

ary outlining eight principles for consider-

ation upon renaming a University building, 

including pedagogy, interpretation, histori-

cal and institutional context, contemporary 

effect and a proposed process for implementa-

tion. There are, however, no binding rules for 

future buildings, and any name change must 

receive approval from the board.

“Our document is not a policy on naming,” 

McDonald said. “If a historical question is 

raised about an existing name, that’s when 

we come into play. None of the principles will 

determine (what names are chosen), but taken 

together they will offer perspectives.”

McDonald said the timing of the memo is 

explained by the coming of age, not only of the 

University, but of academic institutions across 

the nation.

“It’s really incredible how much we’re start-

ing to learn about the University,” McDonald 

said. “These issues of … naming buildings have 

been in the air at other campuses at well. Their 

own anniversaries have created this pushback 

to history. Georgetown was financially saved 

by the sale of slaves. How do you deal with it?”

*****

Hindsight has not favored Clarence Cook 

Little, a biologist who was president of the 

University from 1925 to 1929. Born to an “old 

Boston family” that traces its lineage to Paul 

Revere, Little progressed to Harvard Univer-

sity, where he studied genetics and cancer.

After serving as an officer in World War 

I, Little jumped between various academic 

positions, serving as president of the Univer-

sity of Maine from 1922 to 1925 before he was 

appointed president of the University.

Serving as University president from 1925 

to 1929, Little’s name has been attached to 

the C.C. Little Science Building on Central 

Campus since 1968. In recent years, however, 

students have questioned whether his name 

contradicts the University’s values.

During his brief tenure, Little did rela-

tively little. He banned alcohol in fraternity 

houses, tried to limit the use of automobiles in 

some areas of campus and expanded research 

resources available to faculty. Little resigned 

after four years — hurt by a recent divorce and 

facing opposition from segments of the faculty 

— and dedicated the remainder of his career to 

research, becoming managing director of the 

American Cancer Society in 1929.

However, Little was also a firm believer 

in eugenics, a now-discredited pseudo-sci-

ence that sought to improve the human race 

through selective breeding, maintaining that 

certain genes were defective and should be 

kept from reproducing.

In Europe, Nazi leaders used eugenics 

to justify violent and discriminatory poli-

cies against Jews and other populations they 

deemed “inferior,” such as homosexuals, dis-

abled people and Romani. 

Little was a president of the American 

Eugenics Society, an organization that spear-

headed the promotion of eugenics education 

nationwide. He also supported eugenic ster-

ilization, maintaining that those who were 

deemed “unfit” for breeding should be steril-

ized. In accordance with the sterilization laws 

enacted by the state, the University’s hospital 

performed forced sterilizations until the mid-

20th century.

Little’s beliefs were not unique to the time, 

nor was he alone at the University. Eugenics 

was widely accepted across the medical pro-

fession and Victor Vaughan, the first dean of 

the University’s Medical School, held similar 

views. The Victor Vaughan building is also 

located on Central Campus, serving as a hos-

pital administration building located on Cath-

erine Street.

Because of his belief in eugenics, Little sup-

ported birth control — an unusual position at the 

time — as a means to prevent what he considered 

unworthy pregnancies.

Along with John Harvey Kellogg, popularly 

known as the cereal magnate and less popularly 

known for his questionable politics and support 

for eugenics, Little helped organize the third 

Race Betterment Conference in 1928, at which 

people shared what would now be considered 

discriminatory, exclusionary and racist ideas.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world to judge 

people by our contemporary standards,” McDon-

ald said. “What we know and stand for and what 

people in the time knew and stood for. And we 

need to understand that. And historians 

wrestle with that all the time, but that’s the 

complicated thing. How do we have sufficient 

knowledge, and empathy, and how can we 

stand back and judge what they did?”

A panel discussion, titled “The Power of 

Place-Naming: C.C. Little, Eugenics, and the 

University of Michigan,” will be held in April 

to debate the merits of the continued use of 

Little’s name on campus buildings. Ameri-

can Culture Prof. Alexandra Stern, author of 

“Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Bet-

ter Breeding in Modern America” is organiz-

ing the panel.

Stern said her bicentennial event will 

explore the implications of the University’s 

history as it pertains to Little. She said while 

there were many connections between the 

eugenics movement in the early 20th century 

and the University, the same could be said for 

prominent universities across the country.

“But what is interesting and what prompts 

us to use the bicentennial as a period of 

reflection,” Stern said. “He was only presi-

dent for four years — he appears to have left 

due to some pressure because of his contro-

versial ideas and some of his discriminatory 

belief.”

The panel discussion, which Stern hopes 

will consist of three to four faculty members, 

will create the forum for a conversation about 

the process of naming, and talk through it as 

part of a deliberative process.

“I’m not coming to the event with my deci-

sion already made about what should hap-

pen to the building,” Stern said. “Should the 

building be renamed? Who was C.C. Little? 

What does it mean that thousands of under-

graduates everyday are going into this build-

ing named after a person with those beliefs? 

Do we erase history if we take a name off the 

building, and if we do, do we sanitize the past 

to make it cleaner and neater for ourselves?”

Stern said that though it was planned 

before the memo’s release, her event coin-

cides in the spirit of those guidelines.

Overall, Stern said, she believes the nam-

ing process at the University should not be 

lightly undertaken. In the context of history, 

she said, figures praised in their time, like 

C.C. Little, may not remain so pleasant when 

viewed through the lens of their contempo-

raries.

“I think the real question is: Does the C.C. 

Little name and does his history, does it rise 

to the level of needed to be renamed by the 

University?” Stern said. “The fact is it is get-

ting close to that threshold, because it keeps 

coming up.”

 

***

Further complicating the question of the 

naming of University buildings is the influ-

ence of donors. Contrary to what most believe, 

Jim Harbaugh’s job title isn’t the head coach 

of the Michigan football team. Instead, he is 

officially the J. Ira and Nicki Harris family 

head football coach. Because of a $10 million 

donation to the Athletics Department, all 

those who hold the position will also bear the 

Harris family name.

Those who donate to the University decide 

what happens to their funds, which has occa-

sionally been a point of contention with the 

University community. When the renaming 

guidelines were released in January, mem-

bers of the campus community rehashed some 

recent naming grievances, including the con-

troversy surrounding the changing of Denni-

son Hall to Weiser Hall 

in 2014. The change 

was enacted when Ron 

Weiser — a sitting Uni-

versity regent — made a 

$50 million donation to 

the school.

McDonald 
high-

lighted pedagogy as the 

most essential of the 

guidelines for renam-

ing buildings. For him, 

every naming oppor-

tunity can be a teach-

ing opportunity, even 

in cases of financial 

endowments.

“Acknowledging 
a 

perfectly generous gift 

to the University, that’s 

an excellent thing to 

teach about,” McDon-

ald said. “When some-

one makes a donation, 

it’s not inappropriate 

to put their names on 

it. We’re teaching about 

generosity, and giving 

back and commitment 

to this University. It can 

be a good example of 

pedagogy.”

Weiser was not the only 

donor to face pushback for attempting to rename 

a building after himself. Last semester, Regent 

Mark Bernstein (D) donated $3 million to the 

reconstruction of the Trotter Multicultural Cen-

ter on the condition it be renamed the Bernstein 

Multicultural Center. Amid criticism by students 

and members of the campus community that 

changing the name of the center would erase 

William Monroe Trotter’s legacy, Bernstein 

withdrew the funds.

Trotter was a civil rights activist and co-

founder of the NAACP in 1909. The Trotter Cen-

ter is the only building on campus named after an 

African American.

These episodes raise the question of whether 

the name of a historical figure can be replaced 

by a large donor in the future.

“When the University makes a commitment 

to a name, it’s a very serious commitment,” 

McDonald said. “We have to understand this 

is the commitment the University’s made. 

There is a heavy burden of proof to change a 

name.”

Tappan Hall, named after Henry Philip 

Tappan, the first University president, hous-

es the Fine Arts Library. The building was 

named after him in the 1890s, 40 years after 

his 11-year term.

“It would be hard to find a critic for Presi-

dent Tappan ... (even though he) was vehe-

mently opposed to the admission of women,” 

McDonald said. “What do you do about this? 

He was a visionary leader, except for one 

thing. Nobody’s perfect, no context is com-

plete.”

As the University looks beyond the bicen-

tennial, these naming debates will continue. 

Though these are not questions with easy 

answers, context as well as understanding 

are crucial tools moving forward.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PHOTO BY ALEXIS RANKIN

 
 
James Burrill Angell
 PHOTO COURTESY OF BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY

 
 
Clarence Cook Little
 PHOTO COURTESY OF BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY