Macalester president wants founder’s name removed from building

The president of a private liberal arts college in Minnesota is asking his board of trustees to remove the school founder’s name from a campus building over concerns about his racist and sexist views in the 1800s.

The Star Tribune reports that Macalester College leader Brian Rosenberg told faculty this week he planned to strip Edward Duffield Neill’s name from the humanities building, following pressure from student activists and journalists. Neill Hall was chosen in 2013.

Rosenberg said in a statement to the newspaper that his recommendation “is based on the racism reflected in his historical writings, which are extreme even by the standards of his time.”

The decision came two weeks after the student publication Mac Weekly published a special issue citing numerous examples of derogatory comments Neill made about American Indians in his published writings.

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