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The University of Puget Sound announced that it is removing the name of James R. Slater, a professor of biology who taught at the university from 1919 to 1951, from its museum of natural history.
The move followed a request from a student and a study by a committee.
“Puget Sound’s commitment to diversity is inherently at odds with the concept of eugenics on a fundamental level. A public commemoration of an individual with a decades’ long commitment to these beliefs implies a reverence that is misaligned with the mission, vision, and values of the institution,” said Lorna Hernandez Jarvis, vice president for institutional equity and diversity, who co-chaired the Slater Museum Review Committee.
For more than 30 years, Slater taught a eugenics course in the biology department. While eugenics was an accepted part of biology curricula when he began his academic career, he continued to teach the course long after the subject was removed from other institutions until his retirement in 1951, and it continued to be offered by the college until 1954.
