UCL to review naming of buildings after eugenicists

Source: UCL Image Store

On 11th June UCL Provost, Professor Michael Arthur, announced that he has instructed the ‘Buildings Naming and Renaming Committee’ to begin reviewing the current naming of UCL buildings and locations named after eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.

According to the statement, “Under UCL’s process for naming spaces and buildings at UCL, the ‘Buildings Naming and Renaming Committee’ receives and reviews a formal case and then makes its recommendation to the Provost and to Council for a decision. Changes to naming then takes effect once that process is complete”. The Provost has asked that a recommendation be discussed on 18th June.

A group of UCL representatives including academic staff, equality experts, and the Students’ Union is also being created to consider the other recommendations proposed by the inquiry into eugenics that was published in February of this year.

In 2018 the Provost commissioned the Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL report, examining the university’s historical role in eugenics, in addition to its current financial benefit from it. The inquiry recommended that “UCL (is) to re-name spaces and buildings which bear the name of eugenicists and to find ways to acknowledge this history so that it remains visible”, amongst a variety of other measures.

The report recommended that UCL rename the Pearson Building, the Galton Chair, and the Galton Theatre, and that a plaque or board be created to explain the reason for the change in name. The report saw national news coverage from outlets such as the Guardian, Telegraph, and Independent.

UCL’s announcement comes days after student Jules Fynn launched a petition to rename UCL buildings named after famous eugenicists. Buildings mentioned in the petition include the Galton Lecture Theatre; the Pearson Building and Lecture Theatre; and the Petrie Museum, named after Flinders Petrie. According to the Guardian, Galton, Petrie, and Pearson were “committed eugenicists” who supported the concept of a “superior race”. At the time of writing, the petition has acquired over 2,550 signatures.

Launching the petition, Jules Fynn said, “UCL posted a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, but you cannot claim to believe that black lives matter while continuing to allow the existence of infrastructure named after racists and eugenicists.”

“There is incredibly poor diversity amongst staff, despite the university being in one of the most diverse cities in the world and in the historically progressive location of Bloomsbury. This is not an issue that can be fixed overnight but changing the names of buildings can be done quickly and will be a positive step in the right direction for a university with a terrible history of celebrating its racist forefathers”. This view was echoed in the report, which advocated renaming buildings after BME, women, and disabled people, and highlighted that only one is named after a woman and that none are named after a black or disabled person.

When questioned about the success of the petition by Pi News, Jules said, “The petition has definitely been more successful than I had envisioned. I started it because I am frustrated that UCL still hasn't changed any names despite saying it would look into doing this in February. I expected to get a couple of hundred signatures but definitely not the over 2000 the petition currently has. This being said, I have noticed that the number of views far outweighs the number of signatures on the petition which I interpret as people disagreeing with me.”

“I’m going to leave the petition up until the name changes have been implemented, especially because this only addresses the names of the teaching buildings, not the name of the Petrie Museum.”