Four panelists with diverse professional expertise relating to history, race, education, social justice and ethics urged the Palo Alto school district at a town hall Monday night to think about a current debate over whether or not to rename three of its school sites as an educational opportunity and potential catalyst for deeper change.
The district’s Renaming Schools Advisory Committee invited the four panelists to anchor its first public town hall. The panelists provided historical context about the three namesakes in question for their prominence in the eugenics movement — David Starr Jordan, Lewis M. Terman and Elwood Cubberley — as well as their perspectives on how these histories impact students today, particularly students of color.
“At the root of eugenics is a belief that inborn, hereditary factors play a central role in determining who is rich, who is poor, who is successful, who is unsuccessful, who is able, who is disabled, who is deserving and undeserving of social support,” said Tony Platt, a University of California, Berkeley affiliated scholar whose research supported efforts to rename a Sacramento middle school and other public facilities that carried the name of Charles M. Goethe, a philanthropist and eugenicist.
Platt and others on the panel described the long-lasting impact of eugenics and the lobbying efforts of its proponents, including sterilization, immigration restrictions and a belief that some races, religions and identities are inferior compared to others.
The question before the renaming committee, which is set to make a recommendation to the school board next month, is what, if anything, should be done about the fact that three Palo Alto school sites are named after people who were very active in this movement?
The panelists discussed research showing the negative impact that such names could have on students, particularly within the context of the district’s commitment to inclusion.
Joseph Brown, associate director of Stanford University’s Diversity and First Generation Office and graduate diversity recruitment officer, pointed to research that has shown when students experience bias — whether conscious or unconscious — it makes them more self-conscious, more worried about being negatively stereotyped and less likely to learn in the classroom.
“When a student feels that they are respected, seen (and) valued, difficulty is seen for what it is — temporary, something that can be remedied through the right mentoring, feedback, continued effort,” he said. “But when students worry that they aren’t valued or respected, when they feel at risk because of one or more social identities they possess — it could be their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, their religious affiliation — then frustration, difficulty and experience of bias now carries a more threatening message that they do not belong, they are not valued and that their continued effort in that environment is not likely to lead to success.”
Brown and other panelists urged the community to seize the renaming discussion as an opportunity to seriously examine the school district’s larger strategies around inclusion, equity and diversity.
“We should be aggressively interrogating what we do in the classroom and the ideas that they may convey to students,” Brown said.
Milton Reynolds, senior program manager for national educational nonprofit “Facing History and Ourselves,” said he himself experienced the detrimental effects of bias in school. He dropped out by junior year, he said, not because he wasn’t interested in learning, but because “those that were there to protect me couldn’t fully see me.”
The panelists also took questions and comments from audience members. Palo Alto resident Mike Hedblom read them a statement from his eighth-grade son at Terman Middle School, who wrote that “The words ‘Terman’ and ‘inclusive’ don’t belong together.”
“In English, I am reading a book about the Holocaust,” wrote Skyler Hedblom, who is Jewish. “My teacher and I have discussed how awful it was. Yet every day, I bike past the sign saying ‘Welcome to Terman Middle School.’ How can my teacher and I have these discussions, when we go to a school named after one of the leading advocates for segregation and sterilization of Italians, Portuguese, Mexicans, African Americans and Spanish Indians?”
Several other community members spoke in support of renaming. One man called one panelist’s suggestion not to rename the schools, now that their namesakes’ history is more publicly known, “horribly evasive.”
That panelist, Mary Rorty, a clinical associate professor at the Stanford Medical Center and fellow at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, responded that “changing names doesn’t solve problems; it might make it easier to pretend they don’t exist.” She had suggested an alternative option for the school district: to conduct more research, including surveying students and alumni about how they feel about their schools’ names, and then develop a course on the names’ histories and revisit the topic with students after they have taken it.
Platt acknowledged that those in the community who oppose renaming have strong connections to the generations of history and community inextricably linked to the names of these institutions.
“It’s a very difficult process to change decades and generations of doing things in a particular way and I understand why theres a lot of resistance to that,” Platt said, with one committee member sitting in the audience quietly responding, “Yes!”
“But it’s also an opportunity to reset the values and goals and aspirations of an institution,” Platt added.
More than 50 people attended Monday’s town hall meeting, including Superintendent Max McGee, new Jordan Principal Katie Kinnaman, other district administrators, several school-board members and board candidates as well as most members of the renaming committee.
The committee’s next meeting is this Monday, Nov. 14, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the district office, Room A, 25 Churchill Ave. The group’s meeting schedule, agendas and minutes are posted at pausd.org. A video recording of the town hall has been posted online here.
So was there any discussion about what it costs to rename a school.?? Quite frankly we have more pressing issues given our budget crisis. I would like to see a full public disclosure after a thorough analysis of the cost and budget implications of renaming schools.
What a great conversation last night. At times we see things only from our own perspective. To hear about the history, the implications of institutional bias, the impact of stereotype threat…
I’m so grateful to the committee for bringing the panel.
And I’m disgusted that Mr. Collins refusal to acknowledge anything other than the budget has left people unable to see anything other than the budget. Of course we have to get that right – but we have to get other things right, too.
Go out and vote today! Vote for all of our students and for the types of policies that will help them all succeed.
This event was so one-sided it bordered on ridiculous. There was no meaningful discussion of how to judge these people in historical context, or what criteria might be useful in thinking about changing names. For 3 of the 4 panelists, the question wasn’t whether the names should be changed – it was just how much ELSE could be changed along with the names.
I think the committee did itself and the community a disservice, exposing itself as just a shill for doing what the advocates wanted to do in the first place. This won’t bring the community together.
How ridiculous! Can anyone think of a more foolish way to spend money?
Change the names. Do it quickly and have it in place for next year. Don’t make this yet another PAUSD/PA issue that drags on forever without change. Re-name the schools now.
Cost shouldn’t be too much — and it’s a one time change. Who cares what it will cost when the emotional impact it has on kids and families in our community is far greater. Do the right thing and do it quickly.
I hate to share this with you but Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer that our continent is named for, had slaves. No matter what name you choose somebody will find something wrong with it. Perhaps we should name our schools after a vegetable. Now that’s a good idea. I doubt a vegetable ever had an evil thought or deed attributed to it (or any thought, for that matter).
Kids have to tell everyone they know where they go to school all the time for 3 years and it needs to be a good name.
@ James Thurber
Bananas are evil and have caused a lot of trouble in the worldto be avoided.
“James Thurber” would be a good name too-not sure if he had any dark side, but he is hilarious and that counts for enough.
How about an astronomy term and not “star’ and then a new big Telescope and fun party looking to the future. Either that or just put the word “not” on the signs-that would be cheapest.
I feel that the most pressing issue is to provide programs to aid our students in being respectful and caring individuals, to be more community focused, and to do more the world in general.
Right now with the budget challenges, I feel the money is best spent educating our students on these social and emotional issues. If and when money is freely available, go about the name change.
PLEASE do not use money to rename a school when there are much more vital programs that we can do to aid our children.
This project has been biased from the start. Many of you will remember receiving a survey from the renaming committee several months ago asking you a series of questions about what kind of names (astronauts, politicians, civil rights leaders etc) you think would be appropriate for a school.
However what they DIDN”T bother to ask was whether we felt this was an important issue to us or a good use of funds versus other projects. (and it would be nice to have had an estimate of costs before we gave that feedback) You would have thought a committee who in part is charged with soliciting community feedback would have asked this obvious question. I can only speculate that they didn’t want to ask because they know most people wouldn’t be supportive especially given budget issues.
With the problems the school district has this is a waste of time and money. Understand that people in the past had views we don’t agree with today and move on. Otherwise name them North PA middle school, South PA middle school. Oh but that would be controversial too??? Come on. Move on. So many real issues in our schools and make them really inclusive by day. A name on a school won’t change what happens in the school every day.
@parent
Comments like yours are especially frustrating to hear from citizens of Palo Alto. Do you really think that we are happy to write blank checks to our school district to fund every pet project. I’m not going to defend the past lives of Jordan et. al. but we are owed some analysis of costs. Roll up your sleeves, do the work, give us the answer – that is all I’m asking
And answers such as “It shouldn’t cost too much”, and “who cares what it will cost” aren’t sufficient.
@what’s the cost?
“I would like to see a full public disclosure after a thorough analysis of the cost and budget implications of renaming schools.”
You make an excellent point. Good decisions require full consideration of anticipated costs as well as benefits of any proposal under consideration. This is no exception.
As always, budget decisions are values statements. We hope for a decision in this matter that will accurately reflect the values of PAUSD in Palo Alto circa 2016.
You are welcome to attend RSAC’s next meeting Monday, November 14 when we will be discussing the costs and benefits of various proposed actions. Thank you for your interest.
Jerry Underdal
RSAC member
Thanks Jerry for your response. I don’t mean to be disrespectful but as you invited experts to a panel last night you should also do the same on the cost issue. I hope it’s not a back of the envelope calculation by committee members.
thanks and I’ll shut-up now!
@biased from the start – The questions of cost, and priority of renaming relative to the already-identified issues, was asked several times by at least one committee member. The committee was told not to consider cost in the discussions. The instruction was very clear: “…to answer the following question, “If the school board was to adopt a policy citing the criteria for establishing the name of a new school, what would the community want that criteria to be?” You will notice we are going to be approaching the question from naming a new school that is going to be built, not an existing school with an existing name.” The School Board and Dr McGee will first vote whether to remame one or more schools, then will have to determine what the costs will be, and what programs will be terminated, scaled back or shortchanged if the decision to rename is made. I recommend you and all others interested in cost and priorities ask the Board: board@pausd.org (or phone, or attend meetings) about their priorities and costs, and give them your comments. They may not pay much attention to Town Square comments, but will have to answer requests for information from the Board.
@stanhutchings
the committee was not asked to consider to costs? why?
are you really saying that the school board will make a decision on whether a school should be renamed without knowing the costs?
if that is true that is unbelievable. Hopefully new board members such as Collins will put some sanity in this decision process.
If it is decided to go forward with this “feel good” project, let those who petitioned for it pay for it
Let’s just rename the schools George Custer and Jefferson Davis and be done with this.
A few costs off the top of my head. What else?
Staff time throughout the following:
Meetings, memos, minutes of decision process
Design new building names
Cost of new building signage
Install new signage
Redesign stationary
Order new stationary
Discard current “
Revise web sites, maps, rewrite instructions
For whatever it is worth, decades after its renaming, JLS still has several “Wilbur” signs if you know where to look.
@what’s it cost, @stanhutchings
Stan, you are on the committee, not sure why you are misrepresenting the cost issue here. “The committee was told not to consider cost in the discussions.” That is NOT correct, you are missing the context in your statement, that the committee was told not to consider cost in the discussions “of the rationale to rename or not to rename any of the district schools”. That means we are separating the question of cost from the debate if there are any merits to the request to rename.
The future committee recommendation to the Board of Education will include a renaming cost projection, so that the Board can make an informed decision, if the committee recommends the renaming of any school, and projects what it would cost.
Anyone interested in the work of the committee, or willing/able to support specific aspects of the committee work (like cost projections …), is welcome to join the upcoming committee meetings, they are all open to the public, schedule/agenda can be found here:
https://www.pausd.org/committees-task-forces/renaming-schools-advisory-committee-rsac
@lars: Thanks for the clear answer on the cost considerations (and the process)
@stanhutchings: you’re on the committee, and you’re giving this kind of misinformation? Not helpful.
my personal opinion is that it’s a good discussion to have. Yes, many of our fore fathers had objectionable pasts. However, Jordan was the LEADER of the eugenics movement. That is fundamentally different from just being one of many slave holders, for example. Nonetheless, we’re already past this phase of the discussion. We’re now on to phase 2: how to name the school.
I welcome the conversation and the resolution
The phrase “cost is no object” was invented with Palo Alto in mind.
The cost, time and energy are of course the biggest questions on this.
Following questions have to be what criteria makes a person morally worthy of a building or school named after them? Who knows what the next PC brigade will soon deem morally unsuitable?
Waste of time and money, history should be something our children learn from and not ignore or pretend it never happened.
it’s clear the agenda of some on the panel went much more beyond renaming. Does anyone but me find this statement by Brown kind of troubling?
“We should be aggressively interrogating what we do in the classroom and the ideas that they may convey to students,” Brown said.”
very militant PC tone. the thought police are after us.
No one cares besides the students who are involved and want a college applications booster. The name of a school has no relevance when the school activities are not affected. No schools or universities teach about the people they are named after and this is completely ridiculous. If they rename, rename all the schools Palo Alto Middle School and a number. No person is and angel and I have seen the suggestions and they have skeletons in their closets.
It seems obvious is that if you are going to rename schools and never, ever want to revisit this again then that the schools cannot be named for people (living or dead) because no matter what you think today, sometime in the future people may have a different opinion of the person.
So name the schools 1, 2 3, …. Anything else that you use for a name (streets, trees, birds, colors, animals,etc) someone, somewhere is going to raise the issue that it has a negative connotation.
Elementary School 1. Middle School 2, High School 1, etc.
I’m sure I can find something bad to say about Henry M. Gunn and the word “Paly”
/marc
The critical problem with numbering would be the cultural debate between using Hindu-Arabic vs Roman numerals, and which of those ancient societies was morally superior. Then we must consider alternatives from ethnic backgrounds which require non-ascii character sets, pushing costs higher. Even if we sort that all out, which school would get the coveted number one, and which would bring up the rear? Students might be traumatized going to a number three school. All that emphasis on mathematics could also be considered unhealthy.
As for proper names, a cost-saving tactic would be to prefer those less likely to be misspelled, though as a Cubberley graduate I take certain insider-pride putting the double-L in Ellwood. Half the time, people don’t get the -ley in Cubberley, spelling it like an adverb. Many can’t spell Waverley Street either, even on official city documents.
“palo alto” = legacy of the spanish invasion and repression of the indigenous people. The missions, Serra, everything – tainted legacy of repression and destruction of the native people’s society. How can we honor any of it? Sure they did a lot of good (e.g., modern society), but let’s “interrogate” the history to discover the evil paradigms they harbored, and the violence and repression used to spread them. Read any of the works of any of them, and you’ll discover behaviors and mindsets that would disgust the modern sensibility, and clearly disturb the learning of our children.
Change it all, I say. The culture must be cleansed, it is the only way forward.
The cost accounting must include the expense of issuing new diplomas to all graduates whose diplomas are besmirched by the newly-disgraced school name.
The committee should also consider this could become a recurring expense.
@musical
Use hash marks: vertical lines with each group of four indicated by a diagonal. Better yet, indicate grouping with a horizontal line to avoid the issue of right-downward slants vs. left-downward. I believe that system is pretty much universal across cultures.
Town Square Community
Looking over suggestions on this thread so far, these points stand out for me:
Some favor change, others don’t
If changes are made, don’t name for individuals
keep an eye on cost in making a recommendation to the board
This is useful information.
I urge all who are interested in this topic to inform themselves about the history involved as they consider whether name changes are warranted. Mary Rorty, one of the panelists at the forum, suggested that a resource list be posted on the RSAC web page to assist residents in doing their own research. I will propose this at next week’s meeting. I’m willing to post in Town Square a list of sources I’ve found helpful as I’ve learned about eugenics, Stanford history and the history of Palo Alto. Please feel free to suggest others.
Jerry Underdal
RSAC member
Maybe the committee can devote some time to reorganizing the deck chairs on the Lusitania (Titanic was too obvious). Given what happened to this country Tuesday, I am appalled that some consider this worthy of continued attention
student writes an essay and instantly it needs to be shown the light and acted on, pushed by their parents…and we’ve got a big issue that really should take a back seat to other priorities
is this more about parent’s agenda? a kids resume? or bubble wrapping kids so they only see the good in the world?
good and bad are what makes up life – and give us the ability to deal with curves, ups, downs, surprises etc.
“This is useful information.”
Some people appear to be taking this issue much too seriously.
There are also psychological costs when you rename something that is a big part of the life history of so many people.
For example, renaming VanAuken Elementary robbed some of its former students of the place they went to school. Yes, it is a cost.
I wonder whether the people leading this effort are newcomers who have no history, no attachment, to the existing institution, flaws and all.
Book resources used while researching eugenics, seeking to understand whether the eugenics beliefs and activities of key Stanford figures disqualifies them from being namesakes for PAUSD schools:
Cohen, Adam. Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.
Leonard, Thomas C. Illiberal Reformers. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.
Haller, Mark H. Eugenics, Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1963, 1984 (paperback).
Kevles, Daniel J. In the Name of Eugenics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, (rev. 1995).
Stern, Alexandra Minna. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America.
Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016.
Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race.
Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 2003, (rev. 2012).
Selden, Steven. Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1999.
Winfield, Ann Gibson. Eugenics and Education in America: Institutionalized Racism and the Implications of History, Ideology, and Memory. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2007.
Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Gene: An Intimate History. New York, NY: Scribner, 2016.
Clark, Winifred Edith. “And the Weak Shall Inherit the Earth: David Starr Jordan and the Effects of War”, Master’s Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Dept. of History, San Jose State College, 1968.
Jordan, David Starr and Jordan, Harvey Ernest. War’s Aftermath: A Preliminary Survey of the Eugenics of War. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1914.
Jordan, David Starr. The Human Harvest: A Study of the Decay of Races through the Survival of the Unfit. American Unitarian Association, 1907.
Jordan, David Starr. The Blood of the Nation: A Study of the Decay of Races through Survival of the Unfit. Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1902. (available online at archive.org).
Burns, Edward McNall. David Starr Jordan: Prophet of Freedom. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1953.
Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement. Brookline, MA: Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc., 2002.
Isenberg, Nancy. White Trash: the 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2016.
Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., (rev edition), 1996.
Vance, J.D.. Hillbilly Elegy. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2016.
Nash, George H.. Herbert Hoover and Stanford University. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1988.
I’ll post some online resources later. What reading would you suggest about renaming schools?
“What reading would you suggest about renaming schools?”
You’ve amassed a formidable pile of ostensibly relevant tomes already. Take the next logical step. Read them carefully and list the eugenics saints and sinners. Discard the former, thoroughly vet the latter to screen out all Fascists, Marxists, Trotskyites, Capitalists, militarists, McCarthyites, vivisectionists, Nixonites, jaywalkers, ax murderers, covert CIA agents, lawn-waterers, little-endians, Yankee fans, proto-Trumpistas, and miscellaneous general nonconformists, and yor’re half done. Check back with us at that point.
Dear Curmudge,
I’m in search of information, not attitude. I didn’t know a great deal about the topic when this started a year ago. What I’ve learned since then has been both interesting and relevant. For example, Appalachian hill folks were terrorized by sheriff’s deputies who tracked them down, to be institutionalized and then sterilized because they were considered mentally–and genetically–defective (eugenic campaign against the feeble-minded). You didn’t have to be of a different race or ethnicity from high-status WASPs to fall victim to the enthusiasm of eugenicists on a mission.
Class disdain played a major role in how eugenics played out in Virginia 100 years ago, when David Starr Jordan’s distant cousin Harvey Ernest Jordan, dean of the U. of Va School of Medicine took the lead in blending eugenic science and public policy.
The University of Virginia just changed the name of the main research center of the School of Medicine for the last 45 years from Jordan Hall to Pinn Hall in honor Dr. Vivian Pinn, the sole female and minority member of the UVA Med School’s class of 1967. Her outstanding record of accomplishment over a half century made her a consensus choice to replace the fervent eugenicist as a symbol of the university’s commitment to medical research.
Please, no quick quip comeback on this. I took a fair bit of time to get my facts straight on this. It’ll be worth it if you reply in kind.
Thanks
Jerry Underdal
ONLINE RSAC RESOURCES Part 1
David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/david-starr-jordan-1851-1931
David Starr Jordan (UUBD biography)
http://uudb.org/articles/davidstarrjordan.html
Debunking Intelligence Experts: Walter Lippmann Speaks Out
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5172
Ellwood Patterson Cubberley Facts, information, pictures
Encyclopedia.com
Eugenic Science in California- The Papers of E. S. Gosney and the Human Betterment Foundation, by David A. Valone. Mendel Newsletter, 1996
https://www.amphilsoc.org/mendel/1996.htm
As promised
ONLINE RSAC RESOURCES Part 2
Eugenics and The Nazis – The California Connection
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php
Eugenics, Standardized Tests, and the Politics of School Reform
http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Past-present-Eugenics-standardized-tests-the-politics-of-school-reform-Hoosier-connections-challenges.pdf
History of eugenics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics
In Defense of IQ Testing/ Lewis M. Terman Replies to Critics
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4960/
Lippman debunks Terman
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5172/
ONLINE RSAC RESOURCES Part 3
Stanford Magazine – David Starr Jordan
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=29584
Stanford Magazine – Pres. Ray Lyman Wilbur
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=83000
Stanford Magazine – The Vexing Legacy of Lewis Terman
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=40678
Stanford Magazine – Who Killed Jane Stanford?
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=36459
Jerry Underdal
RSAC Member