The building, which houses the University of Minnesota’s Center for Jewish Studies, is named after a former dean who aligned himself with notorious antisemites.
A new exhibit chronicling a controversial period at the University of Minnesota raises the question.
The names behind the most egregious acts are some of the best known at the U, including former President Lotus D. Coffman and Edward Nicholson, who served as the U’s first dean of student affairs. Both served during a turbulent time when issues of race, equality, war and students’ rights roiled the campus. Both have prominent campus buildings named after them.
Now, as controversies over Confederate monuments rage and names of slave owners are being removed from buildings, streets and lakes, the exhibit is likely to raise questions about whether well-known U administrators involved in discriminatory policies of the past should continue to be memorialized.