The idea for this website arose in the wake of increasing student and faculty awareness that James Slater, for whom the Slater Museum of Natural History is named, taught a course on eugenics from 1921 to 1951. The following questions soon arose: Should we continue to commemorate someone who taught a subject now known to have been pervaded with classist, ableist and racist assumptions and that resulted in policies that are in conflict with Puget Sound’s expressed values? If the museum name commemorates the fact Slater founded the museum, should his name be removed for having taught this course? Why did Slater teach the course in the first place and what was the course content? How can we tell? What is the threshhold for renaming building and institutions as values change, who decides, and how? What kinds of evidence do we use to make these decisions, and how and when is it just to make judgements about the past?

National discussions about renaming buildings and institutions have been increasing in recent years. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and Spring & Summer 2020 protests, those discussions have increased and become flashpoints and proxies for broader debates about American society, its past, its present, and its future. Debates about statues and names are also part of broader debates about the nature of commemoration, the relationship between commemoration and historical memory, who we commemorate and why, and who gets to decide and why. Institutional responses to these questions have varied: some have shied away from such conversations, others have embraced the challenge of developing complex and holistic statements and plans for assessing naming and commemoration practices. Some names have been changed; others have been kept. In recent months, decisions not to change names or remove statues have been reversed. Below you can find blogs, scholarship, and news coverage of debates taking place nationally and internationally regarding buildings and institutions named after influential eugenicists. Given the rapid increase in events and news stories, each list is organized chronologically so that the timeline of debate can be tracked.