The University of Michigan is changing the names of a campus building and a house within a residence hall on the Ann Arbor campus after the legacies of the namesakes were called into question.
The Board of Regents voted Thursday to rescind and remove the names of Clarence Cook Little from a central campus science building and Alexander Winchell from a portion of the West Quadrangle Residence Hall.
"The decision to change the name of a building or house within our residence hall is not one we take lightly,” President Mark Schlissel said. “I deeply appreciate the thoughtful and deliberate way in which we approached this decision.”
In January 2017, a new review process was established for considering questions raised by members of the university community about historical names in and on university buildings.
“Our review principles include that those who wish to change the formally designated names of spaces or buildings carry a heavy burden to justify removal of a name,” Schlissel said. “I believe that burden has been met for these two instances.”
The advisory committee recommended that both the Little and Winchell names be removed.
"“Little lent his scientific prestige to public policy campaigns, supposedly based in science, but actually whose scientific foundations were minimal, exaggerated, or contradicted by mainstream scientists or the contemporary scientific consensus,” the committee report says.
Winchell was a U-M professor of physics, civil engineering, geology and paleontology. The committee noted that “by both contemporary standards and even in the context of Winchell’s day, his most notable work – the 1880 book titled, ‘Preadamites, or a Demonstration of the Existence of Men before Adam’ – was unambiguously racist and out of step with the University’s own aspirations in those times.”
