Building-Name-Review Departmental <[email protected]> Barrows and LeConte Halls Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 9:56 AM To: [email protected] Dear Building Name Review Committee, I am writing to you today on behalf of 1,269 faculty, staff, and students, and alumni as well as 75 campus organizations who want the names of Barrows and LeConte Halls, and white white supremacist legacies they perpetuate, to be immediately removed. Attached is a letter bearing the rationale for this request and a list of the signatories. Additional signatories are added each day as the Google Doc continues to circulate within the campus community. In solidarity, 1,269 campus community members and 75 organizations Call to remove white supremacist names from campus buildings.pdf 187K Dear Building Name Review Committee and Chancellor Christ, We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with protestors all over the world in affirming that Black Lives Matter and in committing to dismantling the pervasive effects of systemic racism in our society. We call on UC Berkeley to immediately and permanently remove the names of the white supremacist namesakes from Barrows and LeConte halls, and begin the process of selecting new names whose legacies are consistent with our shared values. David Prescott Barrows, a former president of the University of California, spent time in the Philippines serving as the superintendent of schools in Manila in the early 1900s [1]. During this ​ ​ time, he described Philipinxs as “savages” and instituted a system of education meant to “civilize” and reform “the vicious system of teaching current in Filipino schools.” [2]. He ​ ​ described Black people as living like “wild beasts” who were “much more barbarous and wild than” Pilipinxs [3]. ​ ​ John and Joseph LeConte were two of the first faculty members of the University of California. They were also slave-owning Confederate scientists who manufactured gunpowder during the civil war, pushed pseudo-scientific theories of white racial supremacy, and vehemently opposed Black people having the right to vote. On the latter subject, Joseph LeConte once said, “The Negro race as a whole is certainly at present incapable of self-government and unworthy of the ballot.” [4]. ​ ​ These are not the types of people we should be memorializing on the buildings of our campus. Barrows Hall, in particular, is currently the home of the department of African American studies, which is simply abhorrent. Every day that these names remain is an affront not only to the people of color within our community, but also to our shared values as a University. This is not the first time this issue has been raised. In 2015, the Black Student Union raised a similar demand to Chancellor Dirks [5]. This led to the creation of a Building Naming Project ​ ​ Task Force, which issued a 41-page report in 2017. Three years later, both buildings' names remain unchanged. Others have already pointed out the inexcusable inadequacy of this response. [6] ​ ​ This failure to take any meaningful action is unacceptable and must be rectified immediately. As the recent denaming of the Law Building shows us [7], stripping a building’s name on the basis ​ ​ of its namesake’s racist legacy is very much within the realm of possibility. While there may be a process involved in selecting new namesakes consistent with our values, stripping these buildings of the current names and the racist legacies they uphold can and should happen immediately. [1] https://archive.is/20121228225438/http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=barrows-david-p-david-prescot t-1873-1954-cr.xml [2] https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=WLRMAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA73 [3] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38269/38269-h/38269-h.htm ​ [4] https://boomcalifornia.com/2018/11/05/the-golden-states-scientific-white-supremacist/ ​ [5] https://www.dailycal.org/2015/07/09/uc-berkeley-students-call-for-renaming-of-campus-buildings-tied-to-confederacy/ [6] https://www.dailycal.org/2017/08/29/uc-berkeleys-glacial-effort-rename-buildings-honor-racists-inexcusable/ ​ [7] https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/01/30/boalt-hall-denamed/ ​ In solidarity, Organizations (to later be put in alphabetical order) AFX Dance Alternative Breaks American Indian Graduate Student Association American Institute of Chemical Engineers Berkeley Chapter (AIChE) ARC Repertory Theatre Asian American Pacific Islander Health Research Group (AAPIHRG) Asian Pacific American Law Student Association Associated Graduates in Near Eastern Studies ASUC Department of Unsustainable Partnerships BEACN Consulting Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice Berkeley Law Trial Team Berkeley Review of Education Berkeley Student Farms Berkeley Underground Scholars Bias Busters Bioengineering Honor Society Biostatistics Graduate Student Association Black Graduate Student Association Black Recruitment and Retention Center Black Students in Public Policy (BiPP) Boricuas in Berkeley Cal Berkeley Democrats Cal Forestry Club CAL Origami Cal Pre-Dental Society Cal Queer Grads Cal Triathlon Cal Undergraduate Political Science Association Chancellor's Advisory Committee on the LGBTQ Communities at Cal Circle K International - UC Berkeley Chapter Climbing Team at Berkeley Dance the Bay De Colores Decolonizing Museums Working Group Delta Phi Epsilon Empowering Womxn of COlor Conferenc (EWOCC) Engineering Student Council Engineers for a Sustainable World Epsilon Eta Gia Magazine Graduate Architecture Student Union Greening the Greeks Herbicide Free Cal Hispanic Engineers and Scientists (HES) Latinx Association of Graduate Students in Engineering and Science Law Students for Justice in Palestine Middle Eastern/North African Law Students Association (MENALSA) – Berkeley Law National Lawyers Guild, Berkeley Law Chapter Natya at Berkeley Organization of Jewish Graduate Students Pilipinx Academic Student Services Queer Alliance Resource Center (QARC) Queers United in Revolutionary Subversion ReUSE Review of Human Rights at Berkeley: The Rights Stuff Social Welfare Graduate Assembly (SWGA) Society of Physics Students (SPS) Sociologists of Color and Allies (SoCA) Space Technologies and Rocketry (STAR) Students of Color in Public Policy T-Cal The Executive Board of the Computer Science Graduate Student Association The Executive Board of the Electrical Engineering Graduate Student Association The Indigenous and Native Coalition Recruitment and Retention Center (INC-RRC) The Society for Womxn in the Physical Sciences The Suitcase Clinic UAW 2865, UC Student Workers Union, Berkeley Unit UC Berkeley - UCSF JMP Students for a National Health Program Chapter UC Berkeley - UCSF Joint Medical Program White Coats for Black Lives UC Berkeley GenSex DeCal Womxn of Color Initiative Word. Sound. Life. You Mean More Zero Waste Coalition Individuals Aaron Gatdula, M.C.P., ‘20 Aaron Velasquez-Mao, PhD Candidate, Bioengineering Aarti Visswanathan, B.S. Environmental Engineering Science ‘22 Abbey Myszka, Staff, University Development & Alumni Relations Abby Lawlor, J.D., Berkeley Law ‘22 Abel Duarte, Phd student Microbiology 23’ Abraham Gomez, B.A. Molecular Cell Biology ‘14 Abraham Gonzalez, PhD Student, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Adam Cutts, M. Arch, College of Environmental Design ‘ 22 Adam Hanbury-Brown, PhD Candidate, Energy and Resources Group Adam Uliana, PhD Candidate, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Adina Lewis, Rausser College of Natural Resources, ‘21 Adonis T. Rivie, PhD Candidate, Integrative Biology Adrian Jules Sales, B.A. Computer Science ‘20 Adrian Williams, MBA, Berkeley-Haas ‘18 Adriana Ramirez, Sociology, PhD Student ‘23 Adrianna Dinolfo, JD Candidate, Berkeley Law ‘22 Adrienne Ricker, 2020 EWMBA, Haas School of Business Ahmad Rashid Salim, Doctoral student, Near Eastern Studies Ahmed Malik, B.S. Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences ‘20 Aidan Cecchetti, PhD Candidate, Civil and Environmental Engineering Aidan McLoughlin, MA candidate, Biostatistics ‘21 Ainsley Torres, Intended B.A. Public Health and Molecular & Cell Biology ‘23 Alan Zhang, B.A. Computer Science ‘19 Alberta Bleck, MCP ‘20 Alejandro Felipe Manuel Gatus, B.A. Media Studies ‘22 Aleksandra Jakubowski, Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for Effective Global Action Aleksey Maro, B.A. Integrative Biology ‘15, Ph.D. Candidate Integrative Biology ‘22 Alex Brostoff, PhD candidate, Comparative Literature Alex Carstensen, PhD Psychology, 2016 Alex Evangelides, Haas MBA ‘17 Alex Lee, MCP ‘19 Alex Mesher, J.D. Candidate, Berkeley Law ‘22 Alex Nisnevich, B.A. Applied Mathematics & Computer Science ‘13, M.S. Computer Science ‘14 Alex Pfeifer-Rosenblum, MPP Candidate ‘21, Goldman School of Public Policy Alex Stephenson, PhD student, Political Science Alexa Nicolas, PhD Candidate, Plant & Microbial Biology Alexander Sandoval, B.A. Sociology ‘21 Alexander Stubbs, PhD Candidate, Integrative Biology Alexandra Paxton, former postdoc, ICBS and Berkeley Institute for Data Science Alexandra Stanton, Haas MBA ‘19 Alexandre de Siqueira, Postdoctoral researcher, Berkeley Institute for Data Science Alexis Cristalle Kelly-Patino, B.A. Architecture ‘23 Alfonso Fierro, PhD Candidate, Department of Spanish and Potuguese Alice Fischetti, PhD student, Italian Studies ‘24 Alice Hsu, MS Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering Alice Hua, PhD Candidate, Psychology, ‘21 Alicia Moreira, M.Arch ‘21 Alisha Klatt, B.A. Comparative Literature, ‘01 Alix Vadot, J.D. Candidate, Berkeley Law ‘21 Aliyah Quiroz-Pando, B.A. Sociology & Social Welfare, 2022 Allie