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 a UO founder. (Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)

(Andrew Theen/Staff)

The University of Oregon won't change the name of the oldest building on campus, which honors Matthew Deady, one of the school's most important historical figures who also supported slavery in the 1850s.

President Michael Schill revealed his recommendation Wednesday to keep Deady's name on the building after a several months' analysis he described as a "wonderful learning experience" for Eugene and the campus community.

"I don't think there's any doubt that Deady had racist views," Schill said in an interview this week. "We see it in the legislation he proposed, you see it in his diary."

But while UO's Black Student Task Force in fall 2015 demanded Deady's name be removed as well as other Ku Klux Klan-related buildings on campus, Schill said Deady's case isn't so clean cut. Removing his name would obscure the school's history. He said he hosted a dinner party at his home Monday night and explained the decision to a group of black students.

"This is embracing the principle that we want all the history to be preserved and to be understood by people," Schill said, promising to create a display inside Deady Hall that explains the former federal judge and politician's personal views. "In some ways, I think that's more powerful than obliterating the name of Deady. Then people won't know anything."

The recommendation comes roughly five months after Schill publicly supported removing Frederick Dunn's name from a campus dorm. Dunn was the grand cyclops of the KKK in Lane County, according to a historical analysis released last year.

UO's board of trustees ultimately decides whether to rename a building, and the trustees unanimously approved Schill's recommendation to rename Dunn Hall last August. A decision on Deady was delayed until further study.

But at the time, Schill said the Deady situation was not as clear-cut, and that renaming a building should be reserved for "egregious" cases such as Dunn's.

UO received some 1,000 comments from students, staff and alums on whether to rename Deady, and Schill said the responses were a mixed bag.

In an explanation sent to the UO community Wednesday, Schill said he owed the campus an answer on the Deady naming issue.

He also announced his intent to move forward with a plan "immediately" to build a Black cultural center in Eugene.

Dave Petrone, chair of the UO's capital campaign, is giving $250,000 to kick start the project.

The center will "improve the climate at the UO for students of color, specifically those who identify as Black or African American," Schill said in the campus-wide notice.

This spring, UO will also start a public process to rename Cedar Hall, the placeholder name given for the former Dunn Hall, to honor someone who "has distinguished themselves in the fight for racial justice and equity."

Matthew Deady was born in 1824 in Maryland and died in 1893. According to the Oregon Secretary of State's history, Deady arrived in Oregon in 1849 with the Army and soon became involved in local politics. He was appointed as an associate judge for the Territorial Supreme Court of Oregon by President Franklin Pierce in 1853.

Four years later, Deady campaigned and won a position as president of the constitutional convention in Oregon as a pro-slavery candidate. Once Oregon became a state, Deady was appointed to the U.S. District Court. He later was president of the Board of Regents at UO, and Deady Hall was built and named in his honor in 1876.

Later in his career, according to the UO historians' report, Deady became a supporter and advocate of Native American and immigrants' rights. Schill said he "underwent a metamorphosis" regarding his legal views, and supported the civil rights amendments of his time.

Schill said it's unclear whether Deady's racist views were out-of-step with the era. "Whether or not he was worse than people of his generation is, I think, open to debate," Schill said. "My guess is he probably was in the mainstream of white men in Oregon in that period."



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen