University of Oregon President Robert Schill last week announced a decision that the name of University of Oregon founder Matthew Deady will remain on the oldest building on campus.
Wise move.
Concerns about the “politically correct” biases prevalent on university campuses are not new, but the situation is real and attempts to rectify perceived wrongs often lead to other oversteps or outright stifling of freedom of speech or thought – or attempts to erase the memories of those found wanting.
This happened down the road in Eugene. But all of us have a stake in activities at one of our state’s leading universities, which gets millions of our tax dollars each year, in addition to tuition paid by students and parents, and is churning out graduates who will likely include many of our leaders of the next generation.
This progression of events also reveals some uncomfortable realities about our society.
For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, here’s a recap.
The university’s Black Student Task Force in 2015 demanded that the UO change the name of Deady Hall because black students “should not be subjugated to walk in any building named after people who have vehemently worked against (the) black plight.”’
Deady (May 12, 1824 – March 24, 1893) was a judge and politician before and after Oregon’s early days of statehood. He was a major player in the establishment of Oregon as a state and in the founding of the University of Oregon, the Multnomah County Library and other institutions that contributed to the political and intellectual life of the state. He served for more than 20 years as president of the university’s Board of Regents.
As chair of Oregon’s Constitutional Convention in 1859, Deady was also influential in shaping the new state constitution, which outlawed slavery but excluded African-Americans from settling in the new state. During debates, he also advocated for discrimination towards Chinese immigrants and blacks, as well as in favor for slavery in Oregon, according to the Oregon History Project.
Deady isn’t the only figure from Oregon history who has been in the university’s crosshairs.
Last September, the UO Board of Trustees removed the name of Frederic Dunn, who taught classics at the university in the 1920s and ‘30s, from a campus dormitory because a historical report commissioned by the university cited the fact that Dunn was a leader of the local Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
In a guest commentary published in the Register-Guard newspaper last year, Eugene attorney David Igl pointed out that historical documents also reveal that Dunn was a devoted Methodist who, thanks to his reputation and position in Eugene society, was a prime target for KKK recruiters.
Igl cited historian Harry Crain, who wrote about the era and recounted how prominent Eugene citizens were approached by the Klan – with which they apparently weren’t familiar – in 1922 and “joined without knowledge of the un-American and dangerous nature of the organization … they joined what they thought to be a patriotic fraternity … many of them refused to attend meetings after they discovered the real nature of the organization with its teachings of intolerance, prejudice and persecution.
“When Dunn learned that he had been ‘duped’ into joining a vile organization, he left.”
But since Dunn, as a prime recruit, had been named grand cyclops of the local KKK, “an organization that terrorized people and ultimately was responsible for lynching people – we could not have a building named after somebody like that,” Schill said.
Maybe Dunn wasn’t as big a player as Deady, but if Igl’s right, the university should have taken a more measured approach in dealing with Dunn’s name on its building – which is a building that actually belongs to all of us residents of this state.
Like many influential figures in history, Deady was a complex person, and reflected the values of his day. He was born and raised in the south (Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky) before coming to Oregon and his support for slavery was, very likely, strongly influenced by his upbringing and the fact that the Civil War had not even been yet fought when the events related above took place.
That’s why this witch hunt into history is flawed and why we’re glad President Schill has come to a reasonable conclusion on the matter, though it will cost the university $3 million to build a black cultural center, which is part of the deal.
There’s no question that bad things – one of the worst of which was the African slave trade – are part of our history. The “PC” movement is often a genuine, if sometimes flawed, effort to acknowledge and right some very genuine wrongs of the past. But it’s messy and there’s a lot of anger and emotion involved as various interest groups struggle for what they consider justice. Those ingredients don’t always lend themselves to wise decisions.
It’s interesting – and a bit uncomfortable – to put this in a current context. But to illustrate how history can come back to bite figures like Dunn and Deady, and how little understanding or appreciation is sometimes applied to their memories, let’s talk about abortion, which has often been likened – bu its opponents – to the issue we’re talking about right here.
Abortion, for centuries, was illegal in the United States, based on religious and other moral values. In 1973, following shifts in public opinion and moral values that accelerated in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal.
To put this as objectively as possible, society’s minds changed, so the law did too. Americans found evidence to assure themselves that fetuses are not human until birth. That paved the way for the some 60 million abortions estimated to have occurred since Roe v. Wade in 1973.
So, what if, in the future, public opinion shifts and America decides that a developing fetus is, indeed, a living soul and all the characteristics of a human, except the ability to survive independently of his or her mother? What will future generations think of the leaders who promoted the cause of legalized abortion – and the Supreme Court justices who voted to change the law?
Back to slavery: Many early Americans – and others – subscribed to the notion that black people were lesser humans than other races, along with using warped views of biblical passages, economic, historical, religious, legal, social and even humanitarian arguments to justify their views and practices.
People who objected to these were ostracized, branded as provocateurs, and worse.
We wonder today how they could possibly have been so blind. But for many Americans now, any question of the morality of abortion raises the same kind of distain and dismissal, at least from liberals, that early abolitionists experienced.
Remember, again speaking objectively, the justification for this practice is practical (reductions in unwanted children, single mothers and associated social ills that cost the public greatly), scientific and moral (fetuses are not actually human until they are born, and the natural right of a woman to dictate what happens to her own body, etc.)
Will perspectives on this and other issues many of us take for granted today change down the road – especially in a society where objectivity is rapidly losing ground to subjectivity?
They could. And if they do, today’s heroes may not be viewed so kindly.
Like Dunn and Deady.