VKC is entering the new year with the same baggage

The beginning of Spring 2020 — with the inpour of new faces and those still round from home-cooked meals — is a time for second chances and new opportunities. Or not. 

Despite the state-wide drought, USC experienced a near constant rainfall of scandals last year. Although the University has survived into the next decade — still smelling of rain and glowing with the rosy dew of optimism — it’s not yet time to celebrate; not when there remains a building dedicated to a known eugenicist. Until President  Carol Folt takes real action toward renaming the building, the situation will remain as is: USC’s administration supports the segregationist sentiments propagated by Rufus von KleinSmid. 

Rufus von KleinSmid served as the University’s fifth president from 1921 to 1947, switching to the chancellor position for the last 17 years of his life. During that time, he oversaw the expansion of USC’s academic system, integrating 16 schools and eight buildings and tripling the student population. In his spare time, von KleinSmid went on to co-found the Human Betterment Foundation — a Pasadena-based organization promoting the “possibilities of race betterment by eugenic sterilization.” 

Prior to his appointment to the USC presidency, von KleinSmid had already made his name known in the realm of eugenics, publishing and presenting a paper titled “Eugenics and the State” at the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine in 1913. Some noteworthy lines from that paper include, “our defective classes breed like rabbits” and “the normal boy and girl have rights … to grasp from youth the fullest measure of what youthful life can gain without the hindering presence of those who can never help.”

At this point, multiple articles have been published exposing the former president for propagating  oppression and outright torture — for that is what involuntrary sterilization is: torture. We can therefore move past the stage of questioning whether von KleinSmid was racist. That is not up for debate. A debriefing of von KleinSmid’s history was included above for the sake of the reader. However, the events themselves are not the focus here, and it’s clear that the absurdity of it all has lost all shock value.

The About USC website offers a, should we say, sanitized version of history of the University’s former president, excluding any mention of von KleinSmid’s fervent advocacy for racism and oppression. This is a sound choice for the sake of advertisement but not as good for the preservation of truth and institutional integrity. In this haze of ignorance, USC hopefuls are led around campus, encouraged to admire the VKC building — and why would they not? It’s a beautiful building. With the towering globe statue and the array of flags representing international students’ home countries, it doesn’t look like it’s named after a depraved human being. 

President Folt entered her position with promises of progressive action and a total facelift for USC. However, the procedure seems to have been botched. Perhaps the physician wasn’t certified as advertised. There definitely weren’t any rave reviews from her previous employment. 

As chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Folt delayed the removal of the Silent Sam Confederate statue until after the majority of it had been torn down by student protesters. Her indecision gained no favor from either side in the arguments over the statue’s place on campus. Instead, it only sped up the process of her resignation. 

Coming to USC a few months later, Folt should have addressed VKC’s name change right away. With the campus in turmoil over the admissions scandals, there was a clear opportunity to increase morale among the student population by tackling a very visible problem. Instead, the president launched the Values Poll, which was a nicely wrapped distraction from the problem at hand, diverting attention from the student demonstrations which interrupted her inauguration.

This is not a matter of what the students want; students have advocated for the building’s renaming for years. Former USG Senator Preston Fregia presented a formal proposal and formed a committee focused on USC nomenclature two years ago. Put plainly, it is the University’s higher-ups who are the roadblock to the change of which USC is in dire need. 

Simply put: USC is protecting a eugenicist over its students — and it doesn’t look like that will change.