The University of Oregon is the latest higher-education institution to move toexpunge an association with racism or slavery from a campus building or monument. On Thursday, The Register-Guard reports, the university’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to remove the name of a 1920s and 1930s professor from a dormitory because the professor, Frederic Dunn, was once an “exalted cyclops,” or leader of a local den, in the Ku Klux Klan.
In a discussion before the trustees voted, an Oregon alumnus, David Igl, made a last-ditch plea to keep the professor’s name on Dunn Hall. But two student leaders argued for removing the name. One of the students, Natalie Fisher, said such a step would be “a very small thing that the board can do to make students feel safe on campus,” the newspaper said.
