Deady Hall in Eugene

Deady Hall is the oldest building on the campus of the University of Oregon and is named for Matthew Deady, a former federal judge and UO president.

(Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)

The name of a former Ku Klux Klansman and university professor will be removed from a University of Oregon campus dormitory, a university board decided Thursday.

The governing board's decision was unanimous and uncontroversial given a historians' report pointing to Frederic Dunn's close ties to the KKK.

But now the board and school will turn its attention to Deady Hall, the school's oldest building, named for Matthew Deady, a campus founding father and advocate of slavery.

"It's very dangerous to obscure history," said President Mike Schill before the trustees' vote. "We learn from history. Taking people's names off buildings is something we should do very, very carefully." Renaming should be reserved for "egregious circumstances," Schill said.

Dunn Hall, named after Frederic Dunn, was "one of those egregious circumstances." The building will temporarily be renamed Cedar Hall. The university will begin a campus-wide effort to discuss a new name starting this fall.

Schill proposed the name change Sept. 1 in response to demands made by the Black Student Task Force last November. Schill commissioned a report from three historians, who analyzed Dunn history. They confirmed Dunn was the exalted cyclops of the Eugene KKK. Dunn died in 1937.

But the other historic figure named in the Black Student Task Force and studied by the historians presents a more complicated picture. Deady, a longtime federal judge, was also one of the UO's founding fathers.

He was also vocally pro-slavery during a time when that was not the view of a majority of Oregonians.

The Black Student Task Force wants Deady Hall to be renamed as well. Schill asked the trustees to push back a decision on that building's future until later this fall when students return to campus.

At least one student, and a trustee, seemed to support renaming Deady Hall as well.

"I'm hopeful that in the fall our campus committee will choose to rename Deady," said Quinn Haaga, the UO's student government president.

Haaga said building names matter. She cited the August murder of black teen Larnell Bruce in Gresham as evidence Oregon's racist history still remains. The Portland Mercury has reported Bruce was run down by a longtime white supremacist, who was indicted last month on murder charges.

Haaga, the student government leader, said the UO should now begin "an investigation" into the historical significance of all building names on campus.

UO Trustee Andrew Colas (center) listened intently for nearly an hour as University of Oregon students testified about how they would cope with higher tuition in March 2016.

Andrew Colas, a Portland construction company CEO and trustee, also said he would "whole-heartedly support" renaming Deady Hall.

He said it's clear renaming buildings opens a potentially divisive debate. "It's a conversion that needs to be had," Colas said. "It's a conversation that if we don't have, I don't think we will be able to learn from history."

The UO students start the fall term Sept. 26.



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen