Slave owner helped create university, but his name needs to go, Ohio students say
Students at the University of Cincinnati, along with faculty and staff wants school officials to cut ties with a slave owner whose name adorns the College of Arts and Sciences, the News Record said.
Charles McMicken “owned slaves and fathered children with one, and possibly two, enslaved women,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
McMicken left land to the City of Cincinnati upon his death in 1858 “that led to the founding in 1870 of the institution that we today know as the University of Cincinnati,” the university said in an online report.
In his will, he designated the city utilize the land “for the purposes of building, establishing and maintaining as soon as practicable, after my decease, two colleges for the education of white boys and girls,” the report said.
Because of the ideologies McMicken held, students and school officials are asking for the institution to “disassociate” McMicken’s name with the College of Arts and Sciences.
Within the report, the group concluded the following:
“Discontinuing the practice is by no means an erasure of history. When a name is changed or removed, the university – consistent with its responsibility to its history — should not purport to erase its history and should ensure that its history is neither lost nor misrepresented and is preserved for study. Charles McMicken’s legacies and the university’s relationship to him, in all their complexities, remain a vital and living part of the university’s history. It is incumbent upon the university to find appropriate means to present that history fully, fairly and accurately, and in ways that make that history a valuable source of education that is accessible to all. We therefore recommend that purposeful work to that end be undertaken immediately, drawing on talents and resources throughout the university.”
Students, faculty and staff began championing the removal of McMicken’s name, saying his racist history as a slave owner is “incompatible with the university’s progressive, inclusive trajectory,” the News Record reported.
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 3:50 PM.