Coffman Memorial Union, an architectural centerpiece at the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, was completed in 1940 and named after the recently deceased University President Lotus Coffman. Coffman was President of the University of Minnesota for eighteen years and, under his leadership, the University of Minnesota became the great University it is today. Or not!
The White Men(I can assure you it was white men) that named the grand building at the South end of the U’s green and spacious Northrup Mall, had collaborated with Coffman in a relentless program of racism and anti-Semitism throughout Coffman’s long tenure as President. They named the student union after the anti-semite Coffman at a time when informed people knew that the Nazis and their allies were rounding up European Jews and sending them to their deaths.
I attended the University in 1974 and ’75 and never once thought about the Student Union’s name sake. It took the diligent research efforts of Sarah Atwood, an American Studies PhD Candidate and her academic advisor, Riv-Ellen Prell, to discover the truth about Coffman and his fellow administrators at the U of M.
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| Some students now refer to it as Memorial Union Thanks to Wikipedia |
A year ago Prell and Atwood went public with their work. They mounted an exhibit at Memorial Union called A Campus Divided: Progressives, Anti-Communists, and Anti-Semitism at the University of Minnesota, 1930 - 1942.
“As president, Coffman was a champion for liberal arts education, overseeing the expansion of the U’s academic offerings and enrollment. It was his goal that the U would one day have a building that could become the center of social life on campus,” the StarTribune wrote in a review of the exhibit.
exhibit
“But during his tenure (1920-38), he also created a system of student segregation, actively barring black students from living among white students in taxpayer-funded campus housing.”
“In 1931, a black student attempted to move into the first men’s dormitory and was promptly asked to leave. Coffman defended the action, saying that segregation was the preference of students of color.”
“No colored student has applied before for admission to the University dormitories,” the StarTribune quotes Coffman writing on the students eviction. “The good sense and sound judgment of the colored students and their parents with regard to this matter has been a source of constant gratification. … The races have never lived together nor have they ever sought to live together.”
Black students were segregated under Coffman’s administration and Jewish students were investigated. Jewish students involve in anti-war activities or progressive political movements were investigated by University administrators. Secret files were opened on many of these people. Some of the files were turned over to the F.B.I. although the students had not committed any crimes.
Coffman’s statements about the races never living together are surely those of a White Supremacist. His administration’s secret and unjustified investigation into Jewish students is sinister, un-American and anti-Semitic.
When todays University students saw the exhibit and learned about the racist and anti-Semitic policies of the Coffman administration they were shocked and disgusted. They began a movement to delete Coffman’s name from the student union that plays such an important role in their lives as students. In March the student government voted to rename the building Memorial Union. The student’s decision to remove Coffman’s name from the building must be approved by current President Eric Kaler and the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
Kaler’s response has been that Coffman did a lot of good for the University. That, he says, should be balance against “things that were not appropriate”. Yes, he called systematic White Supremacy and anti-Semitism “not appropriate”. Meanwhile, he’s appointed a committee to study the matter.
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| Coffman Memorial Phone Booth Wikipedia |
Tim
Central Minnesota Political
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