Dear Campus Community,
I wish to inform you that our request to un-name Kroeber Hall has been approved by University of California President Michael Drake. The name “Kroeber Hall” is, today, being officially and physically removed from the building. For now, until a new name has been approved, it will be called the Anthropology and Art Practice building.
I want to thank the members of the Building Name Review Committee, as well as the hundreds of students, faculty, staff and alumni who took the time to comment on, and express support for, what is the fourth un-naming of a campus building in the last year. The committee, in preparing its recommendation to rename these buildings adhered to a key principle: The legacy of a building’s namesake should be in alignment with the values and mission of the university as expressed in our Principles of Community.
As noted in the committee’s recommendation to un-name Kroeber Hall, it was in 2019 that the Governor of California apologized to Native Americans on behalf of the people of the State of California, because, as the Governor stated, we have “historically sanctioned over a century of depredations and prejudicial policies against California Native Americans.” I completely concur with our committee’s determination that, in the wake of this apology, “Every institution in California needs to examine its history in this regard, including public universities like ours.” This un-naming is but one step in our ongoing efforts to repair our university’s relationship with members of Native American communities on our campus and beyond, and rebuild it on a foundation of respect, equity, and true inclusion.
This building was named for Alfred Louis Kroeber, a preeminent but controversial academic who founded the study of anthropology in the American West. Kroeber’s scholarly record is important and impressive, but so, too, is it marred by what the review community described as his “immoral and unethical” activities. Today, Kroeber is harshly judged for the role he played in the collection of the remains of Native American ancestors for storage in a repository on the Berkeley campus so they could be studied. In 1911 Kroeber and colleagues also took custody of a Native American man, who he named Ishi, and used as a “living exhibit” for museum guests. Additionally, it was Kroeber’s pronouncement that the Ohlone people were culturally extinct that contributed to the federal government ‘s decision to exclude the Ohlone from the national register of Native peoples, stripping them of recognition, land and influence.
This un-naming, while warranted and necessary, should not diminish the import of, and respect for Kroeber’s indisputable contributions as one of the leading anthropologists of his generation. The author of more than 500 publications, and a mentor for two generations of students, Kroeber was a co-founder and president of the American Anthropological Association. It was Kroeber who led a successful effort to combat racist, academic theories of his time that presumed the superiority of white Euro-Americans. He was also an innovator in the use of the wax cylinder machine to make ethnographic recordings that preserved Native Californian languages and music. These same recordings are at the heart of UC Berkeley’s Breath of Life workshops, attended by Native scholars wishing to learn their ancestral, and often endangered, languages.
These are some of the reasons the proposed un-naming was controversial among current faculty members, some of whom stressed that it was Kroeber’s innovative fieldwork — often done through interviews with tribal elders — that helped salvage, after the American genocide, much about the history and culture of Native Californian tribes. Yet, I agree with those who see this move as being less about condemning Kroeber and much more about creating a truly inclusive campus that provides a true sense of belonging for one and all.
As I stated in my letter to President Drake, some of Kroeber’s views and writings do indeed stand in opposition to our university’s contemporary values. Removing his name will help Berkeley recognize a challenging part of our history, while better supporting the diversity of today’s academic community. For more about this decision, please see this Berkeley News story.
A building name is more than a symbol. Those who we choose to honor reflect who we are, and what we believe in. I am deeply grateful for the faculty, students, and staff whose activism, caring, and engagement are helping us reconcile with our past for the sake of a better future.
This message has been sent to all UC Berkeley faculty, staff and students.