The Board of Regents on Friday rejected a recommendation from outgoing president Eric Kaler to remove the names of four controversial leaders from buildings on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
After a contentious two and a half hours meeting with numerous interruptions from an overflow audience of angry students and faculty, the board voted 10-1 to set aside Kaler’s proposal.
At the same time, the board directed the president’s administration to produce commemorations and educational displays and activities that reckon with the U’s history of racism and anti-Semitism at its highest levels.
Kaler said he supported the decision of top regents to call the special meeting in order to bring resolution to an issue that has roiled the university.
The last time regents met, in March, several regents charged the authors of a 125-page academic report with reaching unfounded conclusions and stacking evidence against the former university leaders.
Those regents repeated their criticisms Friday as one audience member accused them of “amateur scholarship.”
Still, regents adopted a separate resolution Friday that commended the faculty for their contributions, citing their “quality” work on the subject and the “integrity” of the individual members.
“It is a divisive issue,” said Ken Powell, the board’s vice chairman. “We just felt that it was time to attempt to bring some closure to the debate.”
However, regents left open the possibility that the building names issue could be raised again following further examination of historical records.
“We don’t have the facts yet,” Michael Hsu said, asking that the board postpone any action.
Arguing to preserve the building names for now, Hsu and others said the deceased university presidents and key administrators were constrained by a powerful Board of Regents. Regents struggled with where to assign blame.
Abdul Omari, the lone regent to vote against the primary resolution, rejected that viewpoint.
“If these were men who just did what their bosses told them to do,” he said, “then they don’t deserve to be on our buildings.”
At one point, regents halted their meeting after a series of audience disruptions. The crowd insisted the board hear from John Wright, an African-American studies professor whose ancestors organized fellow students to fight against the U’s racist practices in the 1930s.
When the meeting resumed, Wright spoke for 17 minutes. He urged regents to read black newspapers, not university archives, to learn how the U treated its minority students.
Wright said the U’s institutional integrity was at stake and the building namesakes are “no longer deserving of a place of honor.”
The buildings at issue are:
Coffman Memorial Union
The student union in Minneapolis is named for Lotus Coffman, president from 1920-1938, who unofficially barred black students from the Pioneer Hall dormitory.
Coffey Hall
The St. Paul administrative building is named for longtime agriculture dean Walter Coffey, who served as president from 1941-45. In a reversal of President Guy Stanton Ford’s policies, Coffey supported the creation of the International House, a blacks-only student residence, and worked to keep Pioneer Hall a whites-only dorm.
Middlebrook Hall
The dormitory on the West Bank Minneapolis campus is named for William Middlebrook, a powerful administrator who served as comptroller and later vice president for business administration between 1929 and 1959. He established the U’s dorm system and supported Coffman’s and Coffey’s segregated housing practices.
Nicholson Hall
The Minneapolis classroom building and former student union is named for Edward Nicholson, dean of student affairs from 1917-41. He spied on students and faculty in service of the Republican Party, labeling numerous Jewish students as Communists.