Committee on Naming and Recognition

In October 2021, in accord with further recommendations from the CNR and the Ruddock House Renaming Committee—established to advise on the renaming of the undergraduate residence—the Caltech Board of Trustees approved new names for the following campus assets and honors that previously memorialized individuals affiliated with the eugenics movement:

• Caltech Hall (formerly the Robert A. Millikan Memorial Library)
• The Judge Shirley Hufstedler Professorship (formerly the Robert A. Millikan Professorship)
• The Edward B. Lewis Professorships of Biology (formerly the Albert Billings Ruddock Professorships of Biology)
• Grant D. Venerable House (formerly Ruddock House)
• The Lee F. Browne Dining Hall (formerly the Harry Chandler Dining Hall)

The Board previously authorized the renaming of the Linde + Robinson Laboratory as the Ronald and Maxine Linde Laboratory for Global Environmental Science.

Two additional assets, the Robert A. & Greta B. Millikan Fellowship Endowment Fund and the William Bennet Munro Memorial Fund, will be renamed through processes managed by the divisions of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, and the Humanities and Social Sciences, which respectively manage the funds.

The CNR's recommendations on renaming came after extensive consideration of Millikan's participation in the eugenics movement as a late trustee of the Human Betterment Foundation (HBF); of Gosney as HBF founder and president; and of Chandler, Munro, Robinson, and Ruddock as either HBF founding trustees or members. The committee also considered evidence of Millikan's stances on gender, race, and ethnicity.

The committee withheld judgment on a seventh individual, Thomas J. Watson Sr., whom they were asked to assess because of alleged ties to Nazi Germany through his leadership of IBM. Given archival investigations into these activities, which undermine the initial accusations presented, the committee determined that there is not at present a clear case for name removal.

President Rosenbaum fully endorsed the committee's recommendations and presented them to the Caltech Board of Trustees, which in January 2021 authorized the Institute to proceed with name removal and renaming.

Read President Rosenbaum's statement.

Background

On May 25, 2020, police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man. The tragedy triggered international outrage and protests. In the weeks that followed, Institute leadership received calls for action to improve diversity and inclusion within the Caltech community. Two significant petitions, each with more than 1,000 signatures, demanded the removal from all campus assets and honors of the names of past Institute leaders who had been associated with eugenics and the HBF. One petition, dated June 25, 2020, was submitted by the Black Scientists and Engineers of Caltech. The second petition, dated July 22, 2020, was authored by Michael Chwe, a Caltech alumnus who is now a professor of political science at UCLA.

On July 22, 2020, in response to these two petitions and a number of campus conversations, President Rosenbaum established the Committee on Naming and Recognition (CNR). Members of the CNR were selected as representatives of, and representatives for, the Institute community, with pertinent expertise across history, biology, genetics, biological ethics, psychology, physics, law, alumni relations, diversity and inclusion, and corporate governance. The CNR was asked to explore how the Institute honors and memorializes significant historical figures. Of specific concern were memorializations of Millikan, Chandler, Gosney, Munro, Robinson, and Ruddock, all because of their connections to the HBF. The memorialization of Thomas J. Watson Sr., was also of concern because of his role at IBM, and IBM's ties to Nazi Germany. The committee's mandate involved a delineation of principles for current and future naming, and recommendations for specific actions, with special consideration of Caltech's ability to be a destination of choice, today and into the future, for a diverse community of exceptional scholars.

Committee Process

The CNR met weekly between July 29 and December 17, 2020, to study the petitions presented, determine the historical facts involved, and decide the best course of action for Caltech regarding naming and recognition.

The CNR agreed to invite two members of the Caltech academic community, UCLA Professor and Caltech alumnus Michael Chwe and Charles Xu, a Caltech graduate student in physics, to speak to the committee about the concerns presented in the Chwe and Black Scientists and Engineers of Caltech (BSEC) petitions. The CNR then sought expert advice from historians affiliated with Caltech, Yale University, and Harvard University; consulted extensive documentation on eugenics and the Human Betterment Foundation; and examined Institute records including the 2015 Naming Policy. In an effort to understand the broad sentiments of the Caltech community, the CNR also invited all alumni, students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, staff, parents, and trustees to submit, confidentially and anonymously, their thoughts on the naming and recognition matter. Likewise, the committee incorporated what conversations across campus produced regarding the impact of current memorializations on our community. Finally, to put this effort into a national context, the CNR surveyed recent developments across a subset of universities.

Throughout its discussions the CNR returned to these core commitments: Caltech's mission, its values, its Honor Code, and its aspirations for the future.

Principles for Naming and Name Removal

The CNR has proceeded on the principles that removing names from assets and honors on campus should be enacted (1) only in exceptional circumstances, (2) when there is significant breach of Caltech's core commitments, (3) when there is a threat to Caltech's future, and (4) in a manner that recognizes the full complexity of Caltech's past.

• Read the principles for naming and name removal in full.
• Read Caltech's Gift Policies, including its 2015 Naming Policy.

Next Steps

The Institute will continue to work expeditiously to update campus signage and information sources to reflect the new building and asset names. Updates on the process will be provided as they are available.

This page was last updated in November 2021.