University Of Oregon Removes Name Of KKK Leader From Campus

University Of Oregon Removes Name Of KKK Leader From Campus

University of Oregon‘s Dunn Hall dorm is finally being scrubbed of its KKK-associated name reports Register Guard:

The University of Oregon Board of Trustees blotted away the name of the 1920s and 1930s classics professor Frederic Dunn from the campus dormitory in a unanimous vote Thursday.

The UO-based Black Student Task Force last November asked the university to strip Dunn of the naming honor because he was an “exalted cyclops” in the Ku Klux Klan. Dunn died in 1937.

Student body president Quinn Haaga urged the trustees to act in the wake of the death of 19-year-old Larnell Bruce in Gresham. The black teenager was purposefully run over by a white supremacist, according to police reports.

“The state of Oregon has a very ugly racist history that was deeply ingrained in our policies and laws,” Haaga told the trustees. “Unfortunately, as this horrible tragedy illustrates, these sentiments are still very alive and well in many parts of the state.”

Student leader Natalie Fisher said renaming Dunn Hall was a small thing if it would make UO students feel safer on campus.

The Black Student Task Force wasn’t present at the meeting. Classes don’t start until Sept. 26. Dunn Hall will be called Cedar Hall until a renaming process can find a new namesake who is consistent with university values, UO President Michael Schill said.

Schill delayed until later in the fall term a decision on Deady Hall, named after pro-slavery UO founder Matthew Deady.

Discuss.