The University of Minnesota is considering removing the name of Nicholson Hall, named after former Dean of Students Edward E. Nicholson, who secretly surveilled students and faculty and oversaw the repression of open debate on campus in the early twentieth century.
The request to revoke the building’s name was sent to Interim President Jeff Ettinger last fall from present and past directors of the Center for Jewish Studies.
According to that request, the actions of Nicholson, who served as dean from 1917 to 1941, undermined the University’s goals of educational equality and intellectual openness by repressing free expression and open debate on campus and punishing students who sought civil liberties.
Any decision to revoke a University building’s honorary name starts with a request to the president of the University, who decides whether it should be sent to the All-University Honors Committee (AUHC), which then sends it off to the Namings and Renamings Work Group (NRWG) to deliberate a recommendation to the AUHC.
The AUHC is responsible for reviewing and recommending nominations for University honors, including the naming of buildings on campus, according to their webpage.
As part of the process, public comments from the University community can be submitted to the AUHC until 5 p.m. on March 18. According to Timothy Johnson, the current chair of the AUHC, the committee had received 323 comments as of Thursday.
“In the end, we just wanted to make sure, as well, that all the people had their say,” Johnson said. “That this was not a decision that was made by a small group of people, that we’re considering all input.”
The decision is a community decision, Johnson said. The committee debated whether to include the entire state but limited it to the University community due to resource constraints.
Mark Distefano, the current chair of the NRWG, which discusses potential issues like the revocation of a building’s honorific naming and makes recommendations to the AUHC, said while the public comments will be considered in the decision, the final decision will be made in accordance with the criteria outlined by the Board of Regents policy on renamings and revocation.
The Board policy requires any recommendation to revoke a naming to advance the University’s mission and guiding principles. The University’s mission, laid out in the Board’s policy, is to advance the learning and search for truth, share this knowledge in a diverse community through education and apply it to benefit people around the world.
According to the policy, one specific factor for a renaming or revocation request is whether the behavior of the individual after whom a University asset is named is inconsistent with the University’s mission or jeopardizes its integrity.
“We have to balance, you know, when we read the comments, we have to see how those fit into the criteria that the Board of Regents has set forth,” Distefano said.
Riv-Ellen Prell, a former director of the Center for Jewish Studies, is responsible for the research supporting the request. Prell, a retired professor of American Studies, said that while repression of student life was common in the 1930s, Nicholson stands out as an exceptional figure.
“I have never found a figure who worked not just to answer questions, but worked as actively with surveillance organizations as Nicholson did,” Prell said. “What I found in Minnesota was how extensive surveillance organizations were and how actively the dean of students was involved in it.”
According to Prell, Nicholson was part of a large surveillance effort from the 1920s and into the early 1940s that was anti-labor and anti-civil liberties. Prell said there were no documents that outlined spying as part of his position. Instead, Nicholson did this on his own.
Prell said not only would his actions be unacceptable today, but they were viewed as unacceptable in his time as well.
“He stopped being dean in 1941, so of course they appointed a committee to say, what should a dean of students be doing,” Prell said. “There is a confidential memo to the president that says, ‘His approach to students is not appropriate. We do not want to continue it. He was about punishment. That is not how to serve students.’”
Prell disagreed with those who said revoking Nicholson’s name from the building is an erasure of history.
“As a person who has devoted 40 years of my life to doing historical research, I completely reject any effort at erasing history,” Prell said. “This is not an erasure. If they choose to take Nicholson’s name off the building, I very much hope there will be a section about him and who he was.”
The AUHC is expected to have their recommendation submitted to the president by April. The president is expected to have a recommendation for the Board of Regents for their meeting in May, and the decision will be voted on during their June meeting.