In 2021, my alma mater removed the name Mead from the Mead Chapel and named it simply, Middlebury Chapel. My convocation was in Mead chapel. My Facebook profile picture has Mead Chapel in the background.
John Abner Mead was a progressive governor of Vermont, a Middlebury alumnus, and a physician. He bequeathed the money for the eponymous chapel. Mead’s crime against humanity, and Middlebury’s sensibilities, were that he supported eugenics, as did many politicians of his time.
A more recent governor and alumnus of Middlebury has sued the college, as an executor of Mead’s estate. Former governor James Douglas claims the donation was part of an implied contract. Middlebury’s lawyers insist it was a gift.
When it comes to college names, we won’t use the word hypocrisy. We’ll just say there are inconsistencies. Amherst College was named for Lord Jeffery Amherst, a genocidal Indian fighter. In 2016, the institution dropped “Lord Jeffs” as its nickname, but the school name remains.
Elihu Yale was a slave trader. In 2024, the institution issued an apology for the role in slavery that its founders had. But it didn’t rename the university. Yale, after all, is a brand. And it hasn’t dipped into its endowment to provide some sort of reparations.
Princeton proudly boasted progressive President Woodrow Wilson as an alumnus and built the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Wilson College. But Wilson, though progressive, was clearly racist. So in 2020, Princeton decided to remove the name. The university resides in the municipality of Princeton, New Jersey. Although there is no clear eponymous ancestor, some believe the original Prince’s Town to be named after Prince William of Orange.
Vanderbilt was named after Cornelius Vanderbilt, a ruthless robber baron and philanthropist. Similarly, Carnegie-Mellon was named after Andrew Carnegie, a robber baron who treated his workers badly but was unmatched in his devotion to philanthropy.
Great men (and women), the kind who get buildings or even institutions named after them, can have complex personalities and mixed records. Such was the case with John Abner Mead.
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