Macalester to remove founder’s name from campus building

Macalester College is removing the name of one of its founders from a campus building, citing concerns about racism in his writings about Native Americans.

The Reverend Edward Duffield Neill was the first president of Macalester, as well as the state’s first superintendent of public schools and the founder of House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul.

Macalester named its humanities building after him in 2013.

But recent research uncovered what the school calls racist and dehumanizing elements in his writings on Minnesota and colonial history. A statement from current school president Brian Rosenberg and board chair Jerry Crawford says student research revealed Neill's extreme views.

“Those students should be commended for engaging in a level of research that reflects well on them and their teachers, and we should acknowledge that such research should have been done by the college much earlier,” said a statement from the school. “Had it been done, the Board is convinced that the building would not have been named in honor of Neill.”

Macalester says it will remove Neill's name from its building and a room in a nearby building. The board is also establishing a committee to find and recommend alternative names for the building and room. The school says it will come up with a way to acknowledge both Neill’s contributions to the school and his writings that the school considers “racist and dehumanizing in the extreme.”