Bust of VonKleinsmid found vandalized hours before Folt inauguration


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Photo acquired by Daily Trojan.

A bust of Rufus VonKleinsmid was found vandalized Friday morning at the VonKleinsmid Center, hours before Carol Folt was set to be sworn in as president of the University. 

According to a photo acquired by the Daily Trojan, the bust’s face was covered in a cloth with the words “rename VKC” written across it and a piece of cardboard with the word “nazi” hanging around its neck. Department of Public Safety Assistant Chief David Carlisle said that they are in the preliminary stages of investigating the incident.

VonKleinsmid holds a controversial legacy at USC. Along with being the University’s fifth president, he was a known eugenicist, someone encourages the reproduction of desirable traits, generally among white people, and discourages reproduction among people with negative traits, which included the poor and people of color, both of whom were deemed intellectually inferior.

During his tenure at the University, VonKleinsmid co-founded a think tank that promoted sterilization “to improve civilization.” A 2017 Daily Trojan article reported that  “A Nation of Imbeciles,” a 2015 paper published in the “Chapman Historical Review,” found that the organization influenced Nazi Germany’s eugenics-based ideology through connections with top German intellectuals and officials.

“What needs to be understood is that this is not an issue of a few students disliking USC’s history or simply a representation of what the norm was at the time; calls to rename buildings are, however, an active movement to remove racism from the pedestal and a process in which history is accurately represented — not slanted — by the narratives of exceptionalism commonplace in American universities,” a Daily Trojan Opinion writer wrote in 2016, after a University study revealed VonKleinsmid’s controversial past.

While USC has not yet released a statement on the incident, USG Vice President Mahin Tahsin and USG President Trenton Stone said in a statement to the Daily Trojan that they have been in touch with Vice President for Student Affairs Winston Crisp.

“USG just last week appointed three members to the Nomenclature Task Force and the group should be meeting soon,” they said in the statement. “We hope this will be a formal place to be able to evaluate names, images, and symbols on campus and prove to be effective in making everyone feel more comfortable attending USC.”

USG did not comment on the specifics of the incident.

Students have asked the University to rename the structure for years. In March 2018, the Undergraduate Student Government Senate voted in favor of creating a task force to rename the building.

In February, former Provost Michael Quick announced the creation of a task force on University nomenclature. The group is responsible for defining principles and processes for faculty, staff and students to submit concerns regarding campus building names, symbols and monuments, according to a memo sent to the USC community.

“The principles should be broad enough to be applied to a variety of circumstances rather than tailored to a particular issue or controversy, and the Task Force should not deal with any particular issue or controversy,” Quick wrote in a letter then. “The Task Force should weigh all relevant considerations and develop criteria for making such decisions.”

Folt is no stranger to addressing controversial monuments. During her time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Folt made the decision to remove the pedestal where “Silent Sam,” a campus Confederate statue, once stood. The fall before, students protested and took down the statue at UNC. After her controversial decision, UNC’s Board of Governors asked Folt to resign — months earlier than she anticipated.