UT Arlington renames building after discovering former dean’s racist past
UT Arlington has renamed Davis Hall, one its campus buildings, after its namesake was heavily criticized for having a racist past against Mexicans, Black people and poor whites.
The building’s former namesake was of E.E. Davis, who from 1925 to 1946 served as dean of North Texas Agricultural College, when the college was still racially segregated. Davis advocated for segregation, sterilization of the disabled and adopting eugenics.
The UT System Board of Regents voted unanimously on May 6 to change the name of the building to the University Administration Building.
The university will also begin to change the name on campus maps, its website and the building itself, UTA interim president Teik Lim said in a statement. The proposal to rename the building reached the board of regents after UTA’s Student Congress passed a resolution in April 2020 recommending the building bear another name.
The resolution states that Davis thought fundamental causes of poverty were “negroes, Mexicans, and lowly whites” and that UTA’s student body, which is one of the most diverse in the nation, does not reflect the views of Davis.
After the resolution passed, a task force made up of faculty, students and staff found that Davis was a “racist, ableist, and bigot.” The task force recommended that the name be changed.
“Davis is not someone that we can memorialize in good conscience with physical recognition on our campus,” the task force said in a statement. “He regarded the lives of racial and ethnic minorities as having a lesser value than whites, diminished their life’s worth to cotton subsisting and farm work.”
The task force found that the former administrator had a history of racist behavior.
Davis was proud to have framed The Sterilization Bill of 1913, which stated that the disabled should not only be prevented from reproducing but they should also be isolated from society and sterilized, according to the UTA resolution.
Davis also advocated for segregation as a way to not bring down highly white communities and white institutions. In his book, “White Scourge,” Davis criticized the cotton industry for attracting people of color for cheap labor. He called the Black, Mexican, and poor whites who lived near cotton fields “worthless human silt.”
In “A Study Of Rural Schools in Karnes County,” Davis wrote that the greatest problem for the county is the education of Mexicans and he also wrote that “Mexican people are very poor and very ignorant. Their standards of living are generally low.”
Lim said the change was not considered hastily or without substantial forethought.
“I join with those who believe this important decision will better reflect the values of the Maverick community and enable us to make UTA a much stronger institution for all,” he said.
