School To Remove Name of Former Univ. President Who Supported the Eugenics Movement
The University of Vermont voted to remove the name of a former university president from a campus building due to his support for the eugenics movement that led to the involuntary sterilization of women, French Canadians and Native Americans.
The school’s board of trustees voted Saturday to remove Guy Bailey’s name from the Guy W. Bailey/David W. Howe Memorial Library, the Associated Press reported.
“We reached our recommendation based primarily on the fact that Bailey’s active involvement as president of the university in supporting and promoting the Eugenics Survey of Vermont is fundamentally at odds with the university’s mission,” said Ron Lumbra, the committee’s chair and trustee, according to the UVM Today website. “We also considered Bailey’s mismanagement of university financial resources.”
School To Remove Name Of Former University Of Vermont President Who Supported The Eugenics Movement https://t.co/tt7QjxlvoM pic.twitter.com/ub6tNWz5so
— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 28, 2018
Bailey formed the Eugenics Survey Advisory Committee, according to UVM documents. He served in name only.
The Eugenic Survey of Vermont did research, created “pedigrees of Vermont families it considered degenerate,” and educated Vermonters about sterilization as a solution to get rid of the “unfit,” according to UVM documents.
The eugenics movement in the 1920s and 1930s led to the “involuntary sterilizations of poor women, darker-skinned French Canadians and Native Americans,” UVM Today reported.
.@uvmvermont trustees voted to remove former UVM president Guy Bailey’s name from the Bailey-Howe library after protests about his role in the Vermont eugenics movement #btvhttps://t.co/lMUCevUl01
— VTDigger (@vtdigger) October 28, 2018
Vermont passed a sterilization law in 1931 and was the 29th state to have such a law.
The law went after “imbeciles,” “idiots” and the “insane” who were either in state institutions or resided in the state, according to the document. Around 200 people were sterilized between 1931 and 1941.
More than 100 UVM faculty signed a petition to remove Bailey’s name from the library. The library will be renamed the David W. Howe Memorial Library.
Howe was a publisher for the Burlington Free Press and an alumnus of the university, according to the AP.
Bailey served as the university’s 13th president.
UVM did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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