William Bennett Munro (5 January 1875[2] – 4 September 1957) was a
Canadian historian and political scientist. He taught at
Harvard University and the
California Institute of Technology. He was known for research on the seigneurial system in New France and on municipal administration in the United States.
Name Removal at Caltech
[3] In February 2021,
Caltech decided to take William B. Munro's name off one of its buildings because he supported and practiced
eugenics, which is a belief that certain people are better than others based on their genes on a scientific and racial level. The building was called the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, but it was renamed the
Hameetman Center.
Caltech made this decision as part of an effort to recognize and address its past connection to eugenics, which has hurt many people through discrimination and damage to marginalized communities. The president of Caltech,
Thomas F. Rosenbaum, said that removing Munro's name reflects the university's commitment to including everyone and recognizing its institutional history.
Munro[4] was an advocate for
eugenics, a now-discredited theory that aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through
selective breeding and
sterilization. Munro argued that the "superior" races should have more children and the "inferior" races should have fewer children, and he supported laws that allowed for
involuntary sterilization.
His name is still used by
Stanford University as an
endowed position for political professorship, with three professors holding the position as of 2023.[5]