How One Person CAN Make A Difference

We often say one person make a difference but we don’t always believe i. Now I have proof. In June 2023 I sat down at Zappas for coffee with Grace Eberhardt. Her family lives in Fort Bragg and even as a lowly undergraduate (if I may indulge my professorial snootiness) she influenced her university to change the name of its regionally renowned natural history museum.

The University of Puget Sound, a private liberal arts college in Tacoma, Washington, founded in 1888, had named their museum for long time Professor James R. Slater in 1979 at the request of alumni, including many of Slater’s former students. Slater a biology professor at the University from 1919 to 1951, had founded the museum, originally named The Puget Sound Museum of Natural History, in 1930, with his own collection of reptiles and amphibians. Today the museum houses over 100,000 plant and animal specimens and sits at the center of the campus.

But when Eberhardt discovered that Slater has taught a course in eugenics at the university for over 30 years she grew concerned. “Scientists need to reckon with their history,” she told me. And the history of eugenics included racial theories supporting the breeding of superior humans (aka Caucasians) while inhibiting the breeding and reproduction of inferior humans (People of Color, mentally and physically challenged individuals, etc.) A popular theory from the late 19th Century, eugenics saw its horrific application in the 20th Century the racial theories and mass murder of Nazi Germany. As Eberhardt told The Seattle Times: “[Eugenics] marginalized many people, including people of color and disabled people. It’s really important we reckon with this history.” As a Latina in a white majority institution in a white field - Eberhardt’s action came from her discomfort “it was personal,” she said.

Eberhardt, then a double major in Biology and African-American Studies, first heard about Slater’s eugenics teachings from a friend. “And,” she said,  “I was kind of uncomfortable about that. I was like, ‘How come no one knows about this?” Eberhardt did exactly what a budding academic might do, she undertook research into the eugenics program at Puget Sound during the Summer of 2019.

  Among other things, she discovered a thesis published in 1947, by one of Slater’s students, supporting eugenic sterilization. The student received high marks from Slater, which Eberhardt said, “was an indicator that Slater did agree with this work.”    Her colleagues also found that Slater himself also tied criminality to genetic inheritance.

So she, one person, did something. She wrote a research paper on Dr. Slater and his theories and submitted her research paper to the Office of the President in the Fall of 2021, requesting that Slater’s name be removed from the museum.

I emphasized earlier Eberhardt’s lowly status as an undergraduate. Think of  all the professors on the UPS campus, the numerous Deans, the Provost, the President all of whom seemingly showed no curiosity about Slater’s teaching, never questioned those old courses in eugenics, and if they did, decided not to make waves.

Eberhardt slowly built support for her views among students and teachers as well as researchers across the country. Two years later, after campus controversy, a review committee, and various bureaucratic consultations the University decided, in the words of its Vice President  for Institutional Equity and Diversity Lorna Hernandez Jarvis, who co-chaired the Slater Museum Review Committee “Puget Sound’s commitment to diversity is inherently at odds with the concept of eugenics on a fundamental level. A public commemoration of an individual with a decades’ long commitment to these beliefs implies a reverence that is misaligned with the mission, vision, and values of the institution.” And the UPS Board of Trustees voted unanimously to remove the name Slater from its museum.

You can see where this is going: if Fort Bragg is committed to diversity, equity, inclusivity, and historical accuracy, when do we decide that a new city name unaffiliated to genocide or treason is required?