Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

District should prioritize renaming Jordan, Terman

Graphic+by+Cheryl+Kao
Graphic by Cheryl Kao

Written by Shagun Khare

Each weekday, promising young students walk into Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) middle schools named after racists and eugenicists in order to learn about how they can lead lives embracing acceptance and tolerance. Palo Alto, although portrayed as a sort of panacea against discrimination and ignorance, is home to physical embodiments of those very characteristics. While teachers inside the classrooms of these schools tell their students of how they should accept everyone regardless of their appearance, the names embellishing the schools on the outside seem to tell a different story. The hypocrisy is blatantly clear. The question now is, what are we going to do about it?

In November, PAUSD parent Lars Johnsson created a petition on Change.org calling for the renaming of Jordan Middle School after his son brought to his attention that the school was named after David Starr Jordan, a leading eugenicist, or one who believed in the selective breeding of certain races. Since the petition was created, it has garnered over 350 signatures and brought to light the fact that Terman Middle School is also named after a racist who was part of the same eugenics organization as Jordan. As a result, a growing chorus of complaints has stimulated the creation of forums and boards that consider the implications and possible ramifications of this revelation. The current progress, however, pertains only to the renaming of Jordan Middle School. While the steps taken so far have been heading in the right direction, more thorough investigation and efficient action need to be taken to ensure that these schools are renamed to genuinely promote the moral values our community lives by.

According to the PAUSD Minority Achievement and Talent Development Advisory Committee, PAUSD strives to foster a community in which “every student has the opportunity and access to programs, practices, and personnel that will empower every child to attain his or her highest intellectual, creative and social potential.” To have schools named after racists inherently suggests that these people are deserving of being honored. For students of color, and especially for minority communities, Jordan and Terman clearly do not meet that criteria. Thus, if PAUSD truly wishes to empower every child, it should get rid of the school names as soon as possible, because even the notion that one must attend schools named after eugenicists can be a highly uncomfortable situation for many students.

Furthermore, retaining the names of Jordan and Terman Middle School disregards the perpetuation of racist ideas that exist to this day. A prominent message of the eugenicist Human Betterment Foundation, which both Jordan and Terman were members of, was that Caucasians were the superior race, and that other, inferior races, such as black and brown people, would die out as a result of survival of the fittest. Although this notion is not prominent today, traces of this ideology continue to disparage and create hostile environments for minority communities as of late. Therefore, if Jordan and Terman as people contributed to the perpetuation of racist ideals that affect PAUSD students to this day on a daily basis, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that their names should cease to be a part of our district’s rhetoric.

The notion that Jordan and Terman are just names sounds eerily like the defense Confederate flag supporters used to justify why the Confederate flag should remain raised in South Carolina. Supporters of the flag said it was part of history, and that it did not really affect anyone anymore. So, why did we take down the flag? South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley answered that question quite eloquently. “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us along longer,” she said at a press conference in June of last year. “The fact that it causes so [much] pain is enough to move it from the Capitol grounds.” We also cannot allow names like Terman and Jordan to divide us any longer. Their ideas may have perpetuated years of pain that many groups in our community have had to endure for decades. That is enough to now remove this symbol of racism so prevalent in our community off of our school grounds.

Discussions and board meetings can only go on for so long. If we want to act and really create change, the time is now.

View Comments (3)
Donate to The Oracle
$550
$1000
Contributed
Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists of Henry M. Gunn High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

Navigate Left
Navigate Right
Donate to The Oracle
$550
$1000
Contributed
Our Goal

Comments (3)

All The Oracle Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • C

    chensharonblogMay 28, 2016 at 5:09 am

    Terman is also not entirely bad…
    Your article made me interested in looking up the Termans (I went to Terman Middle School).

    He later regretted being a eugenicist, and from Stanford’s website (https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=40678):

    Terman left a difficult legacy. On one hand, his work inspired almost all the innovations we use today to challenge bright students and enrich their education. As he followed the lives of intelligent kids, he also became their best publicist, battling a baseless prejudice. As a scientist, he devised methods for assessing our minds and behaviors, helping put the field of psychology on an empirical and quantitative foundation. He was one of Stanford’s first nationally prominent scholars, and as a department chair for two decades, he transformed the psychology department from a languid backwater into an energetic, top-ranked program. He established the longitudinal method and generated an archive of priceless data. Longitudinal studies have “become the laboratory of the social sciences” and are growing in importance as the population ages, unc sociologist Elder observes.

    On the other hand, as biographer Minton points out, the very qualities that made Terman a groundbreaking scientist — his zeal, his confidence — also made him dogmatic, unwilling to accept criticism or to scrutinize his hereditarian views. A similar paradox existed in his social agenda. Terman was a visionary whose disturbing eugenic positions and loving treatment of the gifted grew out of the same dream for an American meritocracy.

    “He was a very nice guy, but I have some things I would argue with him about,” Hastorf declares. His conclusion is that Terman was as much a product of his time as a force for change — and that, like many powerful thinkers, he was complex, contradictory and not always admirable.

    Reply
  • C

    chensharonblogMay 28, 2016 at 3:53 am

    Terman’s also named after Frederick Terman, who was a father of the Silicon Valley. I think it would be unfair for the school to stop honoring him because of what his father, the renowned psychologist Lewis Terman, may have believed.

    Reply
  • N

    Nancy KropFeb 2, 2016 at 10:39 pm

    Thank you for this very well written article. The racist beliefs and actions (promoting involuntary sterilizations of over 65,000 “unfit” people) of David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman are the antithesis of how we – as a community and a school district – view our students. We cherish, believe in, and need every one of you – your unique gifts, talents and potential. Nancy Krop (Terman parent & Gunn alumni)

    Reply