Stop Honoring Racists at the University of Minnesota

Recently, I had reason to revisit the University of Minnesota Regents' decision in 2019 to not rename four buildings on the campus, after that had been recommended by a faculty task force report, based on extensive research of primary sources. The buildings, named for past presidents and administrators who enacted racist and antisemitic policies, are:

• Coffman Union, named for Lotus Delta Coffman, president from 1920–1938. He kept Black students from living in residence halls.
  
• Middlebrook Hall, named for William Middlebrook, comptroller and then vice president for business administration between 1925 and 1959. He worked to keep Black and Jewish students out of University housing throughout his career. (He also was instrumental in creating the University Grove area for faculty and high-level administrators to purchase homes, where he and his family also lived; one wonders who was prevented from living there.)
  
• Nicholson Hall, named for Edward Nicholson, dean of student affairs from 1917–1941. He censored political speech on campus and conducted surveillance on student activists, targeting Jewish and Black students whom he labeled "communists." Note that the building was named for him after his retirement in 1945.
  
• Coffey Hall, named for Walter Coffey, dean of the Department of Agriculture (1921–1941) and then president of the university (1941–1945). He reestablished segregated housing on the campus in 1942, after it had been ended in 1937. Note that the building bearing his name was built in 1907 but not named for him until 1949.
  

The Regents voted 10–1 to keep the buildings named as they are. This despite the urging of then-University President Eric Kaler, the student government, and, of course, the faculty task force who wrote the report itself.

The Regents' reasoning was that the faculty task force was not impartial: the research was weak and left out exculpatory evidence. The Star Tribune described part of the discussion this way:

Regents said the failure of the task force to address directly the role of a powerful board of regents at the time and the resulting constraints on administrators undermined the report's credibility... [or that] they were not comfortable passing judgment on former leaders with the benefit of hindsight.

I note at least one part of the report that mentions the Regents overruling the president's racist segregation, rather than forcing them to segregate, so I'm not sure what the first part of that is about. The latter excuse was made despite the fact that the report fully documented the fact that Coffman's successor as president, Guy Ford, had gone out of his way to reverse the racist policies of his predecessor in 1937 and the years after, only to have others (like Middlebrook and Coffey) undermine his actions. Which contradicts the "man of his time" / hindsight argument.

Since the vote, Regent Hsu, who was particularly accusatory about the task force's bias, lost his reelection bid (good riddance). Regent Sviggum went through a scandal after he implied the number of Indigenous students at the University's Morris campus made the place too diverse, which kept white students from wanting to attend it. He resigned as vice-chair and has also since termed out.

The University has also been through an entire different President since the vote, with Joan Gabel coming and going in less than four years. (Kaler was president when it was begun; I think he hoped to have this done under his watch, clearing the decks for Gabel.)

At the time of the Regents' vote, I believed the task force's recommendations, based on things I knew from my time at the University, but didn't read the report, since I was having a busy year at the time. As I said, I recently was reminded of it, and so went through the report in its entirety (125 page PDF). 

I find it hard to believe the Regents who voted against changing the names of the building actually read the report, and if they did, they should all have been relieved of their positions. There are only two current members of the board whose terms started in 2019, and given that the vote was taken in late April, I think it's unlikely they had been seated by the Minnesota legislature by that time.

This vote was taken before the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I have little doubt it would have gone differently if it had been held afterward. 

It's time for this decision to be revisited. These four men have been honored with building names for 60–80+ years already, including four years since the documentation of their disgraces. 

The University of Minnesota Regents should put an end to it.

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Update: Thanks to GP for commenting with the link to the Regents' minutes from 2019, which show that, indeed, none of the 2019 Regents who voted are still on the board. 

I laughed out loud when I read this line from the initial resolution the Regents considered adopting: "the Board of Regents believes more reflection will come from letting the four names stand as a reminder of the weaknesses of all of us." Sure, that's the way things work!

I note that the words of Professor John Wright, Department of African American & African Studies, who addressed the Board, are not recorded at all. Just the fact that he spoke. Talk about erasure! Fortunately, the Star Tribune story captured some of what he said. Commenter Will Jones has now provided a link to a video of his speech in the comments.

None of the Regents' discussion, also reflected in the Star Tribune article, is recorded either, including the reasoning of the single Regent who voted no.