Montana State University Billings (MSU Billings) is considering removing the name of its first president from its administrative building after it was discovered that he supported Adolf Hitler’s sterilization plan that aimed to eliminate “life unworthy of life.”
Daily Montanan reported that the university has created a task force to review remarks by MSU Billings’s first president, Lynn Banks McMullen, who headed the institution from 1927 to 1945.
The committee’s recommendations will be reviewed to decide whether McMullen Hall — the administrative center of MSU Billings — should be renamed.
The university is weighing in on McMullen’s comments during a 1935 speech at the Colorado State College of Education where he praised Hitler’s eugenics program aiming to improve the “racial” health of the German race.
“I abominate Hitler’s general policies, but if I am correctly informed in regard to his campaign for sterilization of the unfit, I prophesy that Germany will do more for the uplift of her society in the next 50 years through sterilization, than we have done in 85 years through public education,” McMullen said.
He also added that “unfit continue to bring children into the world” while those who should be bettering the society have fewer children.
Making Amends
University officials believe that while a name change may not change history, it will shed light on the past and help to evaluate the repercussions of McMullen’s comment.
“He was a science teacher, and I think about the students he taught and am trying to realize the impact that those ideas had,” dean of Health Professions and Science, Kurt Toenjes, said.
MSU Billings joins a string of colleges that have renamed buildings with ties to racist ancestors. This includes universities like Georgetown, Towson, and Florida State, all of which have renamed buildings to protest legacies of racism.
