Thursday, July 2, 2020
IDS Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
Updated plan, page 2
Another firefighter tests positive By Lilly St. Angelo lstangel@iu.edu | @lilly_st_ang
IDS FILE PHOTO
Jordan Hall is named after former IU President David Starr Jordan, a supporter of eugenics and forced sterilization for what he and others considered the “degenerate stock." IU President Michael McRobbie announced earlier this month that all named buildings and structures on IU campuses would have their names reviewed in light of the international movement to remove racist statues and symbols.
IU reviews Jordan's name on campus By Wei Wang daviwang@iu.edu | @DavidWazman
On June 12, 76 faculty members and researchers at the IU biology department sent a letter to President Michael McRobbie and other IU administrators calling for Jordan Hall to be renamed. This letter comes amid an international movement to remove racist statues and symbols after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer caused word-wide protests against police brutality and racism. “David Starr Jordan was a vociferous and avowed eugenicist who espoused racist views of non-white people,” the letter reads. “How are we to practice and promote inclusion at IU when symbols of those that once promoted exclusionist ideals remain in plain sight?” Jordan was an ichthyologist and the seventh president of IU, serving between 1884 and 1891, after which he served as the inaugural president of Stanford University from 1891 to 1913. At IU, he was the president who reformed the university’s curricula by switching from classical education to modern-day curricular majors and electives. Early Stanford students found their first president memorable for being able to remember each student’s name even after they graduated, according to an article in the January/February 2010 issue of Stanford Magazine. Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, wrote fondly of Jordan. “He has been the loyal, true friend through the past dark years of sorrow and
anxiety,” she wrote to Jordan’s wife in 1899, according to the article. However, Jordan was also a lifelong supporter of eugenics, the racist pseudoscience of improving the human population through selective breeding to magnify certain “desirable” traits using practices such as forced sterilization. He chaired the first Committee on Eugenics of the American Breeder’s Association and was a founding trustee of the Human Betterment Foundation, both of which promoted forced sterilization of the “degenerate stock,” who were often women, people of color, people with mental health issues, disabilities and diseases and criminals. Forced sterilization was a reality in the U.S. for decades. A total of 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized in the 20th century. Indiana’s 1907 Eugenics Law was the first of its kind in the U.S. and authorized a forced sterilization program in state institutions targeting “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists," according to the Indiana State Government website. “For a race of men or a herd of cattle are governed by the same laws of selection,” Jordan wrote in his famous series of publications “The Blood of the Nation: A Study in the Decay of Races by the Survival of the Unfit.” “Heredity carries over not oppression, but those qualities of mind and heard which invite or which defy oppression.” Around 2,500 Hoosiers were forcibly sterilized before 1974, when the practice ended.
In 2018, a middle school in Palo Alto, California, was renamed from David Starr Jordan Middle School to Frank S. Greene Jr. Middle School following a unanimous decision by the Burbank Unified School District's Board of Education due to Jordan’s eugenicist background. On IU's Office of the President website, there is no mention of Jordan’s eugenicist background. “Jordan was an outstanding scientist and the first layman to be named president of IU,” the website writes. The biology department letter writes that although Jordan was part of IU’s history, it doesn't mean there has to be a building named after him.
“Acknowledging Jordan’s role in our past — both at IU and within Biology as a field — does not require that we memorialize his name on our place of work.” IU biology department letter
“We know that history must not be forgotten lest we repeat it; but this history should be placed where it belongs: in a museum with a detailed explanation of its meaning,” the letter reads. “Acknowledging Jordan’s role in our past — both at IU and within Biology as a field — does not require that we memorial-
ize his name on our place of work.” To Scott Michaels, professor and associate chair for research and facilities at the biology department, the argument that renaming Jordan Hall erases history doesn’t hold much water. “Consider this scenario: you buy a house that has 100-year-old green and magenta wallpaper in the dining room,” he said in an email. “You despise that wallpaper. Would you look at that wallpaper for the rest of your life just because some long-deceased person thought it was nice?” “In my own opinion, each generation should get to decorate their own home/world,” he wrote. “In cases where older things are still copacetic with modern thoughts, tastes, attitudes or ideas, by all means keep them. If they cause pain, embarrassment, conflict and strife, by all means get rid of them.” Biology department chair Gregory Demas acknowledged that in Jordan’s time, many biologists were eugenicists. But he said Jordan took it further than other people with his advocacy for the eugenics movement. In the June 12 IU Board of Trustees meeting, McRobbie announced that all named buildings and structures on IU campuses will be reviewed to determine if the names should remain and singled out Jordan as one of such names. Demas said he didn’t know much about Jordan except that he studied fish before the 2017 flyers incident in Jordan Hall. SEE JORDAN, PAGE 3
A Bloomington firefighter tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, the fourth city employee to be diagnosed with the virus, according to a city press release. Eleven firefighters who may have been exposed to the virus after a firefighter tested positive last week were identified through contact tracing and tested. Ten tested negative. The firefighter who tested positive was put on paid leave Friday and is asymptomatic so far. If the employee is asymptomatic for 72 hours, the employee may be cleared to return to work by July 4. The firefighter who tested positive last week is still in quarantine but may return to work July 1 if the employee remains asymptomatic. The firefighter was already on leave for a week with symptoms before the test results came back positive. The city is following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and Indiana State Department of Health guidelines as well as Bloomington Fire Department protocols for contact tracing. Through contact tracing, the city determined that members of the public were not exposed to the virus by either firefighter who tested positive.
Local man charged with child neglect By Lilly St. Angelo lstangel@iu.edu | @lilly_st_ang
A 27-year-old Bloomington man was arrested Sunday for child neglect after a nearly 2-month-old baby girl was found to have bleeding in her brain, Bloomington Police Department Capt. Ryan Pedigo said. The baby was taken to the hospital Friday for “feeding issues” because she was not gaining weight, and her health continued to decline, Pedigo said. The doctors decided to do a CT scan on the baby, which revealed bleeding in her brain. The baby was then airlifted to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. The baby’s parents were brought into the police station for questioning, and the father was arrested. The baby is in serious but stable condition at Riley Hospital, Pedigo said.
Local Black community celebrated Friday Eskenazi School offered externship By Katharine Khamhaengwong kkhamhae@iu.edu | @katharinegk
Enough is Enough, a local Black activist group, organized a “family reunion” for the Bloomington Black community on Friday as part of a small series of events last week. There was a candlelight vigil two days earlier for people killed by police brutality or acts of racism and a postponed event supporting Black LGBTQ people for Pride Month. Friday’s event, which ran from 6 to 9 p.m., was a celebratory contrast to recent protests, and featured performances, food, art, a silent auction of a painting of Colin Kaepernick and Bloomington businesses. The local artists and business owners present were predominantly Black. A fashion, education and charity project called the Love Everyone Brand, also known as the LEO Brand was there as well as shirt company M.A.D.C.O.R.E. and clothing and carpet brand Kito Wares Artists included painter Brooklynn Samonee, who was also selling T-shirts made by her sister and visual artist and rapper Caleb Poer. Performers included Abdul Wasi, Group Fire, FourEva Punchy, Almighty FO and Hungry
By Grace Opinker gopinker@iu.edu
and had printed some T-shirts and masks with his logo on them, which he was selling at the event. “If you’re not eating well and you’re not sleeping well, how can you think the next day?” he said.
Most students in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design rely on internships during the summer to prepare themselves for their future careers. However, due to the pandemic, students in apparel merchandising and fashion design were unable to gain experience from summer internships. Janis Shaffer and Dana Olsen are co-directors of the Center for Innovative Merchandising, and together they came up with the idea to provide an externships for students this summer who missed their opportunities to participate in internships. Olsen said a little over 80% of students in the Eskenazi School participate in an internship within Eskenazi’s program. “Internships are an important part of the program and develop-
SEE FAMILY REUNION, PAGE 3
SEE EXTERNSHIP, PAGE 3
KATHARINE KHAMHAENGWONG | IDS
Bloomington artist Brooklynn Samonee sells her paintings June 26 at the Enough is Enough "family reunion" in Dunn Meadow. The event included several artists and local, predominantly Black-owned businesses.
Dogs. Baker Jelitza Palomino and three food trucks including Pili’s Party Taco, Döner Kebab and JD’s Taste of Chicago fed the crowd. Lorrell Williams, founder of the LEO Brand and an IU media production graduate, said that
one of the goals of his business was to help people from poor neighborhoods access the resources they need to think bigger. His brand is still preparing for its official launch July 23, but that he had already been working on getting local kids on college tours