Will Purdue strip Papa John's founder's name from econ center? John Schnatter recently gave Purdue $8 million. Purdue put his name on an economic center. Now Purdue says it will ‘continue to assess the situation’ after Papa John's founder's use of N-word

Dave Bangert | Journal & Courier

Show Caption Hide Caption John Schnatter in the hot seat for using the N-word Backlash was swift after reports that Papa John's founder John Schnatter used the N-word. He's resigned as the company's chairman as well as a trustee at the University of Louisville

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – At either end of the third floor of the Krannert School of Management building at Purdue University, the name of Papa John’s founder John Schnatter greets visitors to the offices of professors at the economic center renamed in his honor last spring.

Fueled by an $8 million gift in April from the John H. Schnatter Family Foundation, the West Lafayette campus added the pizza magnate’s name in front of the Center for Economic Research at Purdue.

As vestiges of Schnatter’s name this week were being stripped at the University of Louisville, his hometown of Jeffersonville and the corporate roster of the Papa John’s chain – all cascading from his admission Wednesday that he’d used a racial slur in a business meeting this spring – Purdue University found itself with some decisions to make, too.

Will Purdue return Schnatter’s donation – part of a record-breaking fundraising year that brought $451 million to the university in the 2018 fiscal year – and strip his name from the walls at Krannert?

How long it could take to answer those questions was still being sorted out Thursday.

“We operate the economic center with a commitment to the Purdue values of tolerance and respect for those of all races and backgrounds,” said Tim Newton, director of external relations and communications in the Krannert School of Management.

“We will continue to assess the situation while reinforcing our values to all those affiliated with the center,” Newton said.

More: Purdue puts Papa John’s founder’s name on economics center

More: Forbes: Schnatter apologizes for using the N-word on Papa John's call

On Thursday, Purdue officials connected in some way to the John H. Schnatter Center for Economic Research at Purdue were scattered across the country.

Purdue President Mitch Daniels and Provost Jay Akridge – who also serves as the university’s top diversity officer – were out of the office. So were David Hummels, Krannert dean, and John Umbeck and Jack Barron, two economics professors who created the Center for Economic Research at Purdue – with its focus on the role of incentives and markets in public policy – three years ago.

Mike Berghoff, chairman of the Purdue Board of Trustees, did not immediately respond to a message from the J&C.

Audrey Ruple, chair of the equity and diversity committee on University Senate, said she’d reserve comment until the faculty committee could discuss the matter.

On Thursday, Newton said further comment would come after those and others had an opportunity to meet.

On Wednesday, Schnatter admitted that he used a highly offensive racial slur during a May conference call to discuss how to prevent future public relations problems. Forbes magazine reported Wednesday that Schnatter sent a statement confirming his use of the N-word and apologized for it after the news organization cited allegations of the comments made by an unidentified source.

"News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said in the statement, according to Forbes. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”

The remarks came while on a call where he was asked to role-play through scenarios to help him learn how to handle tough issues. Schnatter stepped down as chief executive officer of Papa John's at the beginning of the year after a series of blunders.

Schnatter was asked on the May call how he would distance himself from racist groups online. That topic came up because the company's sales slowed after Schnatter's statements in 2017 about NFL players protesting racial injustice during the national anthem.

"Colonel Sanders called blacks n-----s," he allegedly said, adding that Sanders never faced backlash.

The report said Schnatter "also reflected on his early life in Indiana, where, he said, people used to drag African-Americans from trucks until they died." The reference apparently was meant to show that he found racism deplorable, but the source told Forbes that multiple people on the call were offended.

Forbes reported that the owner of the marketing firm working with Schnatter terminated its contract with Papa John's after it learned about the call.

The fallout was swift.

Schnatter resigned from the University of Louisville Board of Trustees. He followed that by resigning as chairman of Papa John’s board Wednesday night.

The mayor of Jeffersonville, Schnatter’s hometown, announced he would return Schnatter’s $400,000 donation to the city’s basketball gym and removed his name from the building on Wednesday. ("To me, to keep it up there would be to accept his words, and I do not accept them,” Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore told the Louisville Courier Journal. “And I don't want Jeffersonville to be a part of it.”)

Schnatter’s donation to Purdue came nearly a year after he appeared on the Loeb Playhouse stage in March 2017 for an hourlong Q&A session with Daniels. Schnatter joked during the session – largely dominated by questions from Purdue students about the risks and rewards of the restaurant business – that he was being hit up by Daniels to do what he’d done at other universities: put money toward a free enterprise project.

Schnatter, known for his conservative politics and advocacy of free markets, has university economics programs in his name at three other universities, including: the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise at Ball State; the John H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise at the University of Louisville; and the John H. Schnatter Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise at the University of Kentucky.

Purdue’s center at Krannert made four in April.

Purdue’s provost office planned to match Schnatter’s $8 million – plus another $1 million to match a $1 million gift from Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation – over the next six years to hire tenure-track faculty for the center. Newton said some of that faculty hiring already was in the works.

At Ball State, officials were mulling options, as well.

“It is premature for us to comment or act upon the specific incident involving John Schnatter,” Marc Ransford, a Ball State spokesman said. “At Ball State, our alumni, faculty, staff and students are committed to the Beneficence Pledge which encourages us ‘to act in a socially responsible way’ and ‘pledge to value the intrinsic worth of every member of the community.’”

Purdue has been through this before.

In April 2005, 70 students, including many from the Purdue Black Student Union, marched to the provost’s office in Hovde Hall to protest, in part, naming a lecture hall in Pfendler Hall for Earl Butz, former Purdue agriculture dean and former U.S. secretary of agriculture in the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. Butz resigned from his cabinet position in October 1976, after media reported that he’d made derogatory comments about African Americans. The comments followed Butz through the rest of his career, becoming opening-paragraph points in obituaries written when he died in 2008.

After Butz gave Purdue a $1 million gift in 1999, the university named the lecture hall in his honor. In July 2005, after the student complaints, Purdue renamed the hall on the second floor of Pfendler as Deans of Agriculture Auditorium.

Contributing: Grace Schneider and Morgan Watkins, Louisville Courier-Journal. Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.