Building Name Review: Barrows - Feedback

The Building Name Review Committee welcomes comments on the proposal to remove the name of Barrows Hall. The proposal is available at:  https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/task-forces/building-name-review-committee/building-name-review-barrows-hall

Submitted comments that were designated by their authors to be public appear below. 

This page includes comments received as of September 8, 2020.

In favor of the proposal to remove the name Barrows Hall.
Timestamp Comment:
7/5/2020 9:56:00 Call to remove white supremacist names from campus buildings.pdf
7/27/2020 20:50:00 See attached PDF (Native American Advisory Council)
8/14/2020 16:37:00 See attached PDF (Dept of Sociology Anti-Racism Working Group)
8/20/2020 12:41:00 See attached PDF (Barrows Descendents - in favor)
7/13/2020 18:17:56 I support this proposal as, in the words of the authors, a necessary but not sufficient step towards addressing the racist and colonial legacy of UC Berkeley.
7/13/2020 18:24:21 This is a blight on the University of California's history. There is no reason to honor David Prescott Barrows any longer. Barrows Hall is an insult to students of color, and it should be renamed to reflect Berkeley's current values.
7/13/2020 18:28:53 As an incoming freshman at UC Berkeley, I want to be at a campus that prioritizes inclusivity. I stand with my Black and Brown peers in demanding that Barrows be renamed - racist colonizers do not represent Berkeley’s values.
7/13/2020 18:29:43 I support this endeavor to un-name the building. Barrows hall is a hub of undergraduate education owing to its many general use classrooms. Thousands of students are in and out of the building weekly, making "Barrows" a name common in the campus parlance, though the vast majority of the students who say it casually are completely unaware of the history of the man behind the building's name. It is also important to note that the building is home to the Near Eastern Studies Department (housing both Hebrew and Arabic language studies) which is home to professors who work regularly on anti-colonialism studies. It is also the building of the sociology department, which should have a name more fitting to the sociology department's values (cultivated at Berkeley) of the equality of humankind, and rejecting race as a scientific fact.
7/13/2020 18:30:31 I am in favor of un-naming Barrows Hall in support of the Philipinxs who were colonized by David Prescott Barrows.
7/13/2020 18:33:30 We must create new traditions that safely and productively include all members of our community. Renaming buildings named after individuals with racist perspectives is an important step in that process.
7/13/2020 18:34:08 Seems pretty straightforward; we shouldn't have a building named after a racist.
7/13/2020 18:36:39 I am in favor of un-naming Barrows Hall. I do not believe that it is appropriate for a building on campus to be named after an individual who was in favor of white supremacy and held racist ideologies. Naming a building after a person associates their name with respect and honor, and there is neither honor nor respect in racism.
7/13/2020 18:41:36 It’s ridiculous that I was forced *daily* to go into a building named after a man who hated people like me. This should have been done years ago.
7/13/2020 18:41:37 Barrows was an abhorrent person; this is a no-brainer.
7/13/2020 18:42:05 The change would not only allow us to stop honoring a person that does not share our values, but also gives us the opportunity to honor someone who does.
7/13/2020 18:43:11 I am in favor of removing the name Barrow Hall because Barrow as evidently a racist like many of his contemporaries, but with one consideration. The new name should not be accompanied by a financial contribution. Otherwise we may see a spate of re-namings accompanied by new corporate names.
7/13/2020 18:44:23 Barrows Hall should be renamed Marsha P. Johnson Hall or Malcolm X Hall
7/13/2020 18:47:15 I would like to remove the name(s) of any individuals who themselves or their work or impact have been or are oppressive and/or do not represent our campus values. Instead we should honor leaders who stand for and have fought for liberation.
7/13/2020 18:50:06 Douglas Mac Arthur Hall "I shall return"
7/13/2020 18:51:25 The record as presented justifies the proposal.
7/13/2020 18:51:49 David Prescott Barrows simply does not embody the ideals that U.C. Berkeley strives to represent and embody. This university prides itself on ensuring equal education for all its students, and honoring somebody with such inherently anti-Black principles not only goes against what this university teaches its students, but also the ideals of equality and equity that all people deserve. Un-naming Barrows Hall is a chance for this university to truly show the world that it respects all its students and their desires for a fair and equal education.
7/13/2020 18:52:04 As stated by the organizers calling for the un-naming of Barrows Hall, the namesake Barrows’ actions and words advanced the interests of white supremacy. Continuing to honor this man's legacy is especially harmful to Black and Brown students, faculty, and staff and undermines the integrity of our university. It is time to remove his name from Barrows Hall.
7/13/2020 18:53:47 Barrows was anti-worker during the most oppressive period of time towards industrial laborers, the early 20th century. He was also an imperialist and defended the massacre of peaceful Russians (and American soldiers!) at the hands of the Czarist army. His name should not be celebrated.
7/13/2020 18:54:35 I think it is entirely necessary to re-name Barrows Hall. David Prescott Barrows demonstrated himself to be a clear racist and white supremacist in his lifetime, and however he may have contributed to the UC Berkeley campus, we must critically analyze and deconstruct every symbolic and institutional legacy he left on our campus that marginalizes and oppresses minority groups. It is especially imperative that we recognize and change the fact that the hall home to the African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Political Science departments is named for a colonist. Re-naming the building would be an easy step, and I see no valid reason why the University cannot take it.
7/13/2020 18:55:12 Please rename this hall—this name only retraumatizes students of the haunting reminder of who specifically was an agent of colonization; of who personally took part in attempting to destroy and to replace people
7/13/2020 18:57:30 Please re-name the building after an Indigenous person.
7/13/2020 18:58:04 Due to the statements that Barrows has made against the civility Filipino people, it would be justice to name the building Itliong hall.
7/13/2020 19:08:33 I have had an office in the building formerly named after Barrows since 2004. It is long past time to remove the name of a militant racist from the building that currently houses the departments of African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies and Women and Gender studies. As with the other name change questions on the Berkeley campus, the issue is not whether the name should be changed, but what should we change it to?

In the case of the building formerly known as Barrows Hall, I have two suggestions. We should rename the building either Ronald Takaki Hall or June Jordan Hall. Both figures will honor our campus, enshrining in living memory two UC Berkeley professors who worked in that building to build a lasting, global legacy of multicultural scholarship and anti-racist activism.

For more than a decade and a half, I have entered my building looking sideways at the small bronze bust of Barrows hiding in a corner, wondering how long it would take for someone to tear it down and dump it in Strawberry Creek. That time has come. I will look forward to arriving at work each day to my office in Takaki or Jordan Hall.
7/13/2020 19:14:37 Barrows hall is named after a slave owner and a racist. It should be changed in respect for the black students on campus
7/13/2020 19:27:32 Reading the proposal and brief summary regarding Barrows' views, it's particularly hurtful to me as a Filipino woman entering Berkeley Law that someone celebrated and lauded on Berkeley's campus (with a building named after him) thought of me and all other Filipinos as subpar and immoral to the point where we shouldn't have governance over our own country. On the topic of interracial marriage as well, as someone currently in a relationship with a white man, it's unthinkable to me that someone opposed to interracial marriage is again celebrated on campus. Sure, it may just have been the "idea of the time," but that doesn't make it okay and nor does that justify his outright and outspoken opinions against it.
7/13/2020 19:33:52 Happy to see this building named after someone who can inspire the campus.
7/13/2020 19:36:40 This is long overdue, and something I have witnessed students of color and Indigenous students on campus demand for years. How are these committees working to acknowledge and collaborate with the grassroots, student activism that has been calling for these de-naming processes for decades? It must also be acknowledged that housing the departments of Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, and Gender and Women's Studies in a hall with this name has been particularly hurtful.
7/13/2020 19:43:04 These racist views are not historically obsolete but all too persistent and pernicious, as the current regime demonstrates. We cannot afford the luxury of regarding them as quaint museum-pieces, relics of prejudices long surmounted.
7/13/2020 19:43:04 Should have been done the first time this was brought up
7/13/2020 19:50:47 No more glorifying racists
7/13/2020 19:50:47 The un-naming of Barrow's hall is a necessary step for the university to take in mitigating its history of colonialism and white supremacy. Barrows was a white supremacist and a racist who we should not honor on our campus. Listen to the BIPOC students and community members who have put in the work to educate us on this issue.
7/13/2020 20:01:47 David Barrows was a racist coloniser and should have no place on campus.
7/13/2020 20:02:56 UC Berkeley should not allow for buildings or colleges to be named after individuals who do not support students and people the university claims to serve. We must uplift and empower marginalized communities on our campus, rather than force them to acknowledge and accept racial trauma on a daily basis.
7/13/2020 20:04:06 I believe we should re-evaluate several building names on campus, including Barrows Hall. We should rename it after some distinguished alumni or faculty. I.e. Hug Hall, Morgan Manor etc. Thank you for your consideration
7/13/2020 20:06:02 David Barrows was a white supremacist that worked to colonize the Philippines. His name should not be honored.
7/13/2020 20:06:32 Barrows was a racist, change the name.
7/13/2020 20:09:43 As Melissa Charles and Takiyah Jackson have clearly explained, with the support of countless others, David Barrows is not an individual worthy of uplifting and commemorating on our campus, and his name should be removed from our campus facilities.
7/13/2020 20:20:29 I'm from Richmond, VA - Where they just removed the confederate statues from Monument Ave – And I am in STRONG support of the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. Growing up, I, Robert E. Coleman, thought it was “cool” to have a similar name to Robert E. Lee... Little did I know, however, this “cool” similarity was actually rooted in a war fighting to segregate my own half Black, half white family... For this reason, it is imperative we rename Barrows to honor a person whose values match our own. Someone who wasn't a slave owner. Someone who wasn't a racist. And someone who wasn't fighting for something similar to Robert E. Lee. I beg of you, give a Berkeley child growing up an actually "cool" person to honor – Coming from someone who had the opposite experience. Thank you!
7/13/2020 20:25:46 Well enough written critique. As per other critiques, not much contrary evidence cited. Otherwise, concise and to the point. I am always A little mystified that proposed changes are said to be of benefit to such narrow demographics. The benefit of un-naming goes far beyond the list of descendants of most aggrieved, and to pointedly omit others tends to maintain disassociation and it's ills. (This is often a legal standing issue that does not exist as a standard in policy making, so has no place except as a boilerplate legal argument. Perhaps this is not lost on the authors, and they assume the critique will be part of a legal process. Still it comes at a cost more locally, in terms of policy making and community building ) But easy enough to accept the document and it's conclusions as is.
7/13/2020 20:27:21 Must be unnamed. Make space for honoring the contributions of BIPOC.
7/13/2020 20:34:25 As a Filipino-American student attending UC Berkeley, I was troubled to learn about the racist history of David Barrows who our institution decided to name a building after. I urge you to un-name this building for the sake of all students. As the world has witnessed so far with fallen public statues, as a society we have decided it is not okay to commemorate public figures with a known history of racism.
7/13/2020 20:34:31 It is inappropriate and disrespectful to house our historic Ethnic Studies Department in a building named after an outspoken racist.
7/13/2020 20:35:07 It is reprehensible that the building which houses the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department + the Ethnic Studies Department is named for a white supremacist. The call for the un-naming and renaming of Barrows Hall has been uplifted and demanded by Black students and other students and community members of color for years. As a graduating Ethnic Studies student, I hope the committee will take action now to un-name and re-name the building.
7/13/2020 20:40:35 decolonize uc berkeley
7/13/2020 20:43:58 The name "Barrows" represents an individual who should not be remembered by our campus.
7/13/2020 20:45:19 I am in support of the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. It is appalling that departments such as African American Studies and Ethnic Studies are housed under a building with a racist history tied to it. Our preservation of this building's name as a public university is deeply symbolic of the structures of institutional racism that the very students and professors in this building study and work to dismantle.

I want to acknowledge that unnaming Barrows Hall is a permanent change, and that the heightened racial tensions of today may indeed serve as a catalyst to this change. However, I firmly believe that unnaming Barrows Hall is the right course of action not just in this moment, but for many years to come.

We must not consider this a question about political correctness. This unnaming is not just a reaction to the racial climate of today's world because racial injustices against Blacks, Filipinx, and Indigenous peoples will never be "okay", not today and not tomorrow. We, as a public university, have the moral obligation to our students to fight against racist histories, and we can take a symbolic step towards that through the unnaming of Barrows Hall.
7/13/2020 20:45:43 This case is very simple – Barrows' writings espouse white supremacy, and as such his name and legacy are incompatible with the current espoused values of the University, and so must not celebrated with a place of honor on the campus.
7/13/2020 21:05:41 UC Berkeley should immediately and without reservation change any namesakes with which any part of its current community takes issue. That Berkeley students, staff, and visitors must walk through doors named after a xenophobic colonist is completely incongruous with Berkeley's academic mission and purported ethical standards. Rename Barrows Hall. Find a new namesake whose actions and 'accomplishments' were not at the expense of marginalized groups' lives and autonomy.
7/13/2020 21:39:52 While I was a graduate student in the Energy and Resources Group (Ph.D. 2012), I dwelt in Barrows Hall for more hours than I can count and more years than I care to admit. Throughout those years, it was a running joke that no one - not even the faculty - knew anything about the "Barrows" after whom Barrows Hall was named. One of my QE committee members jokingly suggested that it would be on my exam, so I hastily looked it up just in case, but forgot again just as promptly. Considering the almost complete lack of attachment that Barrows Hall's inhabitants feel to the name, coupled with Mr. Barrows' distasteful and long-standing history of racist beliefs, I wholeheartedly support the petition to un-name Barrows Hall. When the time comes, I look forward to voting on suggestions for a new, more inspiring name that reflects our values.
7/13/2020 21:43:56 As a Filipino-American, knowing that the person behind this building's name was in favor of subjugating and "civilizing" my people disgusts me. We should not be memorializing those who actively worked to oppress others no matter what time period they are from. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard and memorialize those who have done good work for all people no matter their origin.
7/13/2020 21:55:40 I strongly support the un-naming of Barrows Hall, a building that bears the painful legacy of a white supremacist. The historical vestiges of racist, sexist, homophobic individuals in power across UC Berkeley's campus symbolize and perpetuate the continuation of inequities today, undermining the experiences of people of color and their predecessors. I hope that the administration can work with individual students and organizations to agree on a building name that is more reflective of the university's values.
7/13/2020 22:02:02 Oppressive and racist individuals should not be immortalized. The building should be renamed after a figure who represents ideals that uplift all people, from all backgrounds and identities.
7/13/2020 22:17:27 I am an alumnus of the UC Berkeley Rhetoric PhD program and current Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA. I support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. David Prescott Barrows, former UC President, espoused anti-Black, anti-Filipinx, anti-Indigenous, xenophobic, and Anglocentric beliefs throughout his career as an anthropologist, educator, and colonizer in the Philippines. It is an affront to UC Berkeley's values, and the Ethnic Studies department in particular, to keep his name on the building.
7/13/2020 22:29:25 It's a special kind of insulting that the students and scholars who work in African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Native American Studies, and Gender & Women's Studies do so in a building named for a white supremacist; Berkeley should have un-named this building long ago. To echo the proposal, the university still needs to reckon with its role in structural racism today, but un-naming Barrows Hall is an important step in the right direction.
7/13/2020 22:30:34 Replace the name of Barrows to the name of the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, or use the name "University of the Philippines Hall' to represent the filipinos commmunity in Berkeley. Since Barrows has been colonizing the Philippines, we need to use the name that symbolize the culture of the Philippines and represent Asian-American commmunity in our berkeley campus.
7/13/2020 23:21:04 It boils down to this: either we act with integrity or we do not. Our actions matter. They decide the character of our community. What we do now will speak louder than the most carefully crafted words. Which is why the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall is a thrilling test of our fortitude. There comes a time, as King reminds us, when what is right—what is decent, honest, moral, principled, and courageous—is also what is unsafe, unpopular, or unprofitable. But the exciting part is that we must do what is right anyways because to not do so would be wrong. We have a chance to do is what is right. Un-name Barrows Hall. Unlearn colonial ways. Uncover the truth. Allow suffering to speak. Practice your integrity.
7/13/2020 23:34:57 I stand with the Black Student Union's proposal to unname Barrow's Hall. From reading the proposal, it is clear that the building, as it is named currently, serves as a symbol of racism and a legacy of white supremacy and colonialism.
7/13/2020 23:35:10 Need I quote the great Mark Twain who wrote a scathing critique of American Imperialism, “The Person Sitting in Darkness”(l901)?
“I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem,”…And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land….
The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: “There is something curious about this -- curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land."

The truth is, the Person Sitting in Darkness is saying things like that…..”

And I as a Filipinx-American writer and poet continue to say -- enough of Barrows and his lot of white supremacist good old boys. Barrows worked to colonize Filipinos and studied Native Americans in the hope of making them extinct, much less become productive Americans with all the rights and benefits of citizenship. We are here now – and Barrows name should be stripped from the building at the University of California, Berkeley.
7/13/2020 23:45:22 In all efforts to condemn racism and discriminatory practices, UC Berkeley should effectively remove the name of Barrows Hall along with other problematic and controversial names/associations immediately. This will show the students, community, and the nation what UC Berkeley truly stands for and that the institution is here for everyone. If the building is not un-named, the UC Berkeley name will be synonymous with racism, period.
7/14/2020 0:29:57 I just want to express my support, since my guess is that many people support this proposal casually, and the people who feel strongly enough to write in with their comment may be disproportionately those against the proposal. I'm trying to counterbalance this somewhat. I strongly support this proposal.
7/14/2020 4:47:02 Thank you, please find a more inclusive name that celebrates our Principles of Community.
7/14/2020 5:24:52 There is no question that Barrows should be un-named. Thank you to Melissa Charles and Takiyah Jackson for their labor and leadership in putting together this long overdue proposal.
7/14/2020 5:31:44 There is no reason or excuse for naming UCB buildings after racists. It signals ongoing tolerance and willful ignorance of white supremacy. It's simple and clear: we should rename Barrows Hall to reflect the values we claim to hold.
7/14/2020 6:39:31 I am in favor of un-naming Barrows Hall. It is important for UCB to align with the principles of community and have building names associated with people or things that represent inclusion and respect for humanity. Barrows, as a former slave owner, did not value the humanity of every human being. Therefore, we should not honor him. The descendants of enslaved human beings should not have to walk or refer to buildings named after people who committed barbaric acts of attempted genocide.
7/14/2020 6:50:26 He sounds horrible even compared to others of his own time
7/14/2020 7:17:40 Especially given the departments and programs housed in this building, renaming is appropriate. David Barrows' utterances on race and colonialism may have been of his time, but have bequeathed racial subjection to the present as well. They represent the racist and colonial thinking, and legitimate the actions and institutions, that now require an enormous project of redress. A name that simply identifies the building with the social sciences is more apt.
7/14/2020 8:12:01 Barrows is a known racist and it is frankly ridiculous that our ethnic studies building bears his name. I support the move to rename the Hall.
7/14/2020 8:30:12 Black Lives Matter. Please change the name.
7/14/2020 8:31:33 It is an honor to have a name on the building, as well as an opportunity to educate people about a historic and inspiring figure. Lets honor someone who people would benefit from learning about.
7/14/2020 8:35:04 Throughout his lifetime, Barrows’ words and actions were anti-Black, anti-Filipinx, anti-Indigenous, xenophobic, and Anglocentric
7/14/2020 8:43:40 Barrows demonstrated extreme anti-blackness, degraded Filipinx people, had a racist, anti-Democratic record and misuse of public education, and he held a white supremacist’s view of global history. UC Berkeley should not continue to honor him through having this building named after him. It's time for blatantly racist homages of past to be eliminated throughout our nation and particularly on the UC Berkeley Campus.
7/14/2020 9:06:06 As a Pil-American, it really tainted my Berkeley experience that a building where I took several of my classes someone with so little opinion of my people. It is laughable (not) and hypocritical to think that I took an asian-american class celebrating wonderful works and lives of minorities, almost thinking that maybe this institution did care for the hxstory and stories of peole like me... And then I remember the name of which Building I am sitting in. I am in favor of this renaming and I urge the committee to support this proposal.
7/14/2020 9:09:29 I fully support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. Buildings and public spaces at a university should be named, if named at all, after figures who have contributed in some way to the uplifting of humanity, whether intellectually or materially. As those who have compiled the proposal have amply shown, David Barrows strove to do just the opposite—to contribute to the violent oppression and dehumanization of people.

Naming is also not simply about one's contribution to the university itself, because the people honored with named spaces become icons and representatives of the university's ideals. And those ideals, as well as public standards, change. The university is not an immutable and static institution. On the contrary, in its pursuit of knowledge and understanding it should be striving to push for nuance, empathy, critique, and most of all, change.

If Barrows' crude and racist opinions were acceptable to his university and intellectual peers 80-100 years ago, they should surely not be acceptable to UC Berkeley today. The un-naming of Barrows Hall is all the more important when one considers that the building houses the departments and programs of African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Ethnic Studies, Native American Studies, Near Eastern Studies, and Gender & Women's Studies! Myself and many of my colleagues in these departments are, or are involved in teaching the histories and cultures of, just the kinds of people about whom David Barrows wrote such reprehensible things. Indeed, some of these fields of study arose in part out of a need to push back against and undo the work that David Barrows and others like him were invested in doing.

While un-naming the building cannot undo the violence of white supremacy and colonialism which people such as Barrows advocated, or materially improve the lives of historically marginalized peoples, many of whom are present on campus, it can convey the important symbolic message that UC Berkeley is committing to value their lives and that it no longer approves of the legacy of those who did not.
7/14/2020 9:10:57 I am in full support of the timely un-naming of Barrows Hall. The history of David Prescott Barrows is one that is rooted in anti-Blackness, white Supremacy and the degradation of our Filipinx community. It is even further problematic that this building houses our Ethnic Studies department. Maintaining this name only furthers the hostile racial climate on this campus for folks of color. If our university is truly committed to living out our core principles and values, the committee will take the necessary action to un-name Barrows Hall
7/14/2020 9:15:26 I support the proposal to Un-Name Barrows Hall July 9, 2020 brought forward by Melissa Charles and Takiyah Jackson of the UC Berkeley African American Student Development Office.
7/14/2020 9:16:50 YES! Un-name Barrows and all buildings/programs/fellowships etc. venerating problematic racist, white supremacist, colonist figures. Un-naming this building would be one tiny step towards living up to our campus principles of community.
7/14/2020 9:23:35 As an alumni, I support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. Since 2016, UC Berkeley students have advocated for renaming Barrows Hall. Back then, the Black Student Union proposed to rename Barrows Hall after Assata Shakur and the Pilipinx community at Cal proposed Gabriela Silang as the new name of the building (see https://www.dailycal.org/2016/03/04/rename-barrows-art-movement/). Regardless, I urge the Chancellor's office to listen to the present student organizing committees and organizations' recommendations. Renaming Barrows Hall is long overdue.
7/14/2020 9:47:07 Barrows is clearly a man who was undeserving of power in his lifetime and is undeserving of recognition in our lifetime. Stop naming buildings after people, especially in exchange for donations/gifts.
7/14/2020 10:20:29 Now that I have been made aware of Mr. Barrows' troubling views on race and culture, I do object to having the office where I work located in a building that honors his legacy.
7/14/2020 10:32:23 I had heard about David Barrows having been racist, but the information compiled by the name change committee was eye-opening. Even for the standards of his time, David Barrows was thoroughly dedicated to white supremacy, colonial domination, and the violent suppression of organized labor. I don't want to continue to work and teach in a building bearing his name.
7/14/2020 10:32:59 As the building that houses the African American and Asian American Studies Departments, Barrows Hall is a wildly inappropriate name for this campus building, given that the former UC president stated in his writings on the History of the Philippines that the "White or European race is, above all others, the great historical race," while referring to native Filipinos as "backwards" and "savages." These sentiments are explicitly racist and white supremacist and a person with thoughts such as this has no right to be honored on our campus.
7/14/2020 10:41:33 As a political scientist studying white racial attitudes who spends most of my time on campus in Barrows Hall, I was appalled to learn about its namesake's own attitudes by reading the proposal submitted to the committee. Ceasing to honor this man and the harmful legacy of white supremacy to which he contributed is the very least our university can do to express solidarity with students and scholars of color, as well as our commitment to dismantle this legacy through our scholarship.
7/14/2020 10:48:38 I am in full support of renaming this building, as a university that prides itself in diversity, inclusivity and equity, upholding these names are counterintuitive the mission of the university. We have an obligation to dismantle systemic racism, that includes coming to terms with the injustices that the university has perpetuated.
7/14/2020 10:55:50 We should not have a building on campus named after a colonizer that believed in white supremacy.
7/14/2020 11:05:46 For the ethnic studies department to be in a building named Barrows is an insult to our department and the students. I am glad it is being changed because Barrows is a symbol of white supremacy and says a lot about UC Berkeley.
7/14/2020 11:07:43 I'm very much in favor of removing the Barrows name from this building. Honoring someone whose actions illustrated disregard for the lives of many in our community is a violation of our values.
7/14/2020 11:13:13 David Prescott Barrows held highly offensive racist views. Honoring him with a building is sending the absolute wrong message about what our campus is about. Our Principles of Community state "We affirm the dignity of all individuals and strive to uphold a just community in which discrimination and hate are not tolerated." Barrows' name tarnishes this principle.
7/14/2020 11:26:26 I'm shocked that I didn't know the backstory of the man who Barrows Hall is named after. I'm Filipino, and I work for UCB, so I walk by this building every day. Hurts that this was allowed after all these years. Imagine POCs going into this building, unaware of the monster whose building houses their education. I am all for dismantling white supremacy in all its shapes and forms. To do nothing, to be complacent, is to allow this, at times, invisible force, to continue its socialization.
7/14/2020 11:31:38 Barrow's personal beliefs and public statements represent the worst impulses and crimes of our collective past. In his lifetime, he was a prominent man within our institution who may have rightly deserved his name on a building. With time, however, we must reckon with the sins of our past and honor those in history who better represented the values we now hold today.
7/14/2020 11:41:57 Barrows Hall should be un-named as its current name endorses the white supremacist ideology of former UC president David Barrows.
7/14/2020 11:47:11 I am so glad that un-naming Barrows Hall is being proposed. As outlined in the proposal, David Prescott Barrows was extremely racist and is not the kind of person that a UC Berkeley building should be named after. I hope that the proposal is approved so that the building can instead be named after someone who represents the values Berkeley strives for. Like the proposal also states, I hope that this name change is accompanied by information and artwork so that the name change can be educational.
7/14/2020 12:03:30 Based on the thorough and persuasive rationale provided, I fully support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall.
7/14/2020 12:04:30 As a Filipina-American alumna of UC Berkeley it would mean the world to me if my alma mater took the steps forward to ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion on our campus. I remember when it was first brought to my attention that the very hall I was attending my Sociology major classes in was one that was named after a colonizer, David Prescott Barrows. A colonizer who looked down on Black and Filipino people as inferior. It made me feel like every time I stepped in the building I didn't belong. Renaming the hall would be a huge gesture by Cal to show that they are willing to adapt to change, and to recognize the wrongdoings that the institution have taken a part of. Not renaming the hall would show that Cal is complicit to colonist ideals. Please think of your students who spend their lives believing Cal is one of the best universities in the world. Show them that it actually is by owning up and evolving.
7/14/2020 12:28:26 David Prescott Barrows was a colonizer who believed in white supremacy. We should remove his title from the hall in order to make it clear that those beliefs do not align with our mission and campus culture. In order to make students of color welcome and safe on campus this name needs to be removed as we do not condone the actions or beliefs of David Prescott Barrows, former University of California president. Without renaming the hall, we the students, faculty and community members that invest into Cal, are saying that it does not matter to us that we are exemplifying a man who's racism was pervasive and widely known. We need the names of our buildings to align with our values not as they may have once been but with where we are now and where we are going. Therefore, Barrow's hall should be unnamed.
7/14/2020 12:34:08 I continue to be appalled with the University of California Berkeley honoring white men who are not human, who think they and their white race are superior to all. They are not to be honored, their names should not have a place on any of our buildings where black and brown people are continually traumatized by seeing it or studying in a building named after a racist. We must stop this immediately. We are better than this. Having buildings named after white men who do not value other human beings is not part of our core values or community principles. Please remove Barrows name from this building and any other place it resides.
7/14/2020 12:51:26 After reading the proposal to remove the name, I am shocked and disgusted by the views Barrows held about Black and Filipinx people. As a public university, we have a responsibility to reverse historical decisions to honor those who helped to institutionalize the structural racism that continues to cause racial inequities in every arena of our society today. Barrows' service to the university is eclipsed by his repugnant views--which were not simply his personal opinions, but were expressed in testimony to Congress, with real political consequences.
7/14/2020 12:51:36 I am writing in favor of the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall because of the reasons elucidated in the proposal, primarily because (as was put so eloquently in the aforementioned proposal): "naming a building after a person is an honor, and for Black and Filipinx students and scholars — as well as many others from historically marginalized communities across our campus — the decision to continue honoring Barrows constitutes tacit approval of a significant and lasting legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, and violent oppression." In short, the name as it stands makes students and faculty uncomfortable, it does not gel with the school's stated values, and it is supportive of racism, colonialism and white supremacy. The building should be renamed (preferably after a person of color).
7/14/2020 12:52:12 During a time of such intense racial strife and reckoning with white supremacy and systemic discrimination, the university needs to understand its role in upholding, perpetuating, and perpetrating racial violence on minorities in this country. UC Berkeley was named as one the "top worst schools for Black students" by USC in 2018 with one of the lowest scores for equity out of all the schools on the list. The discrimination and inequity I have experienced and witnessed on campus, as well as that also directed at other underrepresented BIPOC students goes unrecognized and unaddressed by the university. Changing the name of one building in no way erases the injustices by the university or the country, but it does take a step towards recognition and accountability and shows that the university wants to change the narrative about academia and who gets to be the face of academic institutions. It is unconscionable that a violent white supremacist colonizer be the face of a building on one of the most visible and powerful college campuses in the world. If the university does not un-name Barrows Hall, they will prove to the community that they truly do not care about Black, Indigenous, and Pilipinx students and the ways in which they perpetuate and perpetrate white supremacy and racial violence on and off campus.
7/14/2020 12:52:15 I support renaming Barrows Hall.
7/14/2020 13:02:40 Barrows, home to many social science departments including ethnic studies, is named after a colonialist who contributed to the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. To uphold the values of providing a welcoming and safe environment to all students, I urge UC Berkeley to rename this building!
7/14/2020 13:24:22 I express my support for un-naming Barrows Hall, this is a small yet important step to take towards creating more inclusive campus environment. It is essential that as a community, we reflect on our history and the names and legacies we choose to honor with a critical, anti-racist lens. It is past time to follow the leadership and requests of Black and Brown students and staff from the past several years and enact this change.
7/14/2020 13:26:29 Renaming Barrows Hall is important for our identity as an anti-racist academic community. Having a building named after a racist harms black and brown students. We should take action to alleviate this harm. I strongly support this change.
7/14/2020 13:51:46 David Prescott Barrows was a racist colonizer.
https://www.dailycal.org/2016/03/04/346740/
7/14/2020 14:09:49 Seems like we could do better
7/14/2020 14:10:15 Mr. Barrow's white supremacist views, even in a historical context, taint the university.
7/14/2020 14:11:14 It is already disheartening to engage with curriculum that often honors the academic achievements of white men, but fails to acknowledge their bigoted pasts. In some cases, the very science that students engage with is not recognized for the racist incentives it was engendered from, but merely the contribution it made to the field.

Removing this name demonstrates that the university acknowledges the impacted student populations and is committed to efforts in deconstructing institutional racism.

I support this proposal.
7/14/2020 14:15:45 Given the written examples of Barrows' beliefs provided, it seems obvious that he should not be honored by having a building named after him.
7/14/2020 14:21:59 It is important to fight for change. Here at UCI, we had a library renamed after a donor was exposed of sexual assault. It is important to rename buildings when they have caused pain for marginalized groups. We need to do better for our students.
7/14/2020 14:54:47 As a Filipino-American student, taking Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies courses were some of the most transformative experiences that I've had during my time at Cal despite my area of study being in the sciences. The courses offered through the Ethnic Studies department have taught me so much about my history and have empowered me to continue pursuing higher education. Ironically, the classes and offices that support Asian American Studies are located in Barrows Hall, memorializing David Prescott Barrows, who was greatly contributed to the oppression of people in the Philippines. The actions of David Prescott Barrows do not reflect the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion that UC Berkeley currently holds. By honoring David Prescott Barrows with a building name, the long-term negative impacts of US imperialism on the Philippines are blatantly ignored.
7/14/2020 15:33:11 I am fully in favor of un-naming Barrows hall. We should not be honoring racists with our building names. The new name should be up to BIPOC students and faculty who have been most harmed by Barrow's legacy of racism
7/14/2020 15:45:45 Placing the ethnic studies department in a building named after a racist is offensive and wrong on so many levels. The fact that this is even up for debate is ridiculous and shameful
7/14/2020 16:07:11 Administrators: I hope that this experience teaches you to listen to Black and Brown students sooner. Taking 5 years to do this is reprehensible. Good job BSU! Let's make sure not to let them wriggle out of it this time!
7/14/2020 16:07:52 Please un-name Barrows Hall
7/14/2020 16:21:57 Remove it!
7/14/2020 16:26:51 I appreciate the following acknowledgment: "For several years, the burden to challenge the name of Barrows Hall has been placed on student activists and staff members (most of whom are Brown or Black). This proposal is grounded in their activism, words, and research."

I agree that Barrows Hall should be un-named. As was the case with many of the statues of colonizers and racists that have recently been toppled by protestors, we cannot in good conscience continue to honor David Prescott Barrows by keeping his name on the building, for his views were and are still not honorable. Not only did he hold these views, but he spread them as an educator. As an institution that must decolonize our own educational practices, we should not be doing so in a building named after someone who created the curricula we are trying to dismantle. Un-naming this building is one step U.C. Berkeley can take to create a more welcoming environment for Black and Brown students, staff, faculty, and other community members.
7/14/2020 16:42:09 Wow what a racist - why would we leave his name on the building?
7/14/2020 17:34:20 It is important that we continually try to decolonize our campus, and although unnaming our buildings is a small step on the road to decolonization, it is nonetheless an important one.
7/14/2020 17:35:08 Barrows' own papers (in the Bancroft Library) are an indictment of his explicit colonial agendas.
7/14/2020 17:53:10 As outlined by Melissa Charles and Takiyah Jackson of the UC Berkeley African American Student Development Office, David Prescott Barrows was a virulent racist who directly harmed communities of color and propagated white supremacist ideologies. UC Berkeley continues to perpetrate that harm by honoring Barrows' name. It would be a step in the right direction to reorient our definitions of excellence and demand more stringent criteria for honoring alumni; Berkeley has many honorable and accomplished graduates, and our campus has a duty to promote legacies that center inclusion, equity, and growth.
7/14/2020 18:24:26 Un-naming Barrows Hall is critical, as the name carries the legacy of a racist and white supremacist. In order to uphold its values and commitments to its Black students and students of color, the name "Barrows" must be removed.
7/14/2020 18:30:32 As a graduate student who has attended multiple classes in Barrows Hall, including courses that have discussed the intersection of racism and positionally in research, I believe that retaining the name damages the integrity of the university. The namesake of this building was a purveyor of institutional racism and harm, and I have seen many of my peers who identify with the groups that Barrows targeted, respond to this name as an indication that they are not valued or welcome on campus. Moreover, the fact that it has taken so long for the name to even be reviewed, despite years of persistent calls from the campus community, particularly Black and Filipinx students, is deeply disrespectful and concerning. Please use this opportunity to support student voices and uphold anti-racist values on campus by un-naming Barrows Hall.
7/14/2020 19:03:32 Even if it's not actually true in practice, to many students the names of buildings seem like something which it should be easy for the administration to change. So not changing a building's name, when it honors someone who in life would not have respected Berkeley's current study body, gives students the false impression that the administration does not respect, or does not care about, or has contempt for, the student body. So it seems to be in the best interests of both students and the administration if building names, if they're named after people, only honor people who would respect and appreciate the current student body.
7/14/2020 19:29:31 We as an institution should not be honoring white supremacists. Keeping the name is harmful to our students and does not uphold the values I know Berkeley to have.
7/14/2020 19:49:55 This un-naming has been long coming. I have for years felt the shame of associating myself and our department with the name of this building. This concluding line from the review committee proposal summarizes my sentiments: "Naming a building after a person is an honor, and for Black and Filipinx students and scholars —as well as many others from historically marginalized communities across our campus — the decision to continue honoring Barrows constitutes tacit approval of a significant and lasting legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, and violent oppression. This is harmful, and Barrows cannot stand as a symbol of what we value on the Berkeley campus."
7/14/2020 20:32:15 Barrows was a white supremacist that believed that Pilipinxs are savages that need to be "civilized." As a Pilipinx and recent graduate of the university, I questioned why this institution allowed Barrows to be memorialized on such a large scale— or even any scale. Pilipinxs are the LARGEST Asian American group in the state of California but only represent 3% of the university's student body. Our obstacles are compounded. We are navigating a university that does not represent us demographically while also being re-traumatized every time we step foot in Barrows Hall. This is not the diversity nor inclusion that this university preaches and prides itself on. In fact, it is disrespectful that our Ethnic Studies Department (including the Asian American Asian Diasporas Studies Department) is in a building that commemorates an oppressor that denies the existence of these groups. This building's name change is long overdue.
7/14/2020 23:06:52 The Ethnic Studies Department was the primary reason I successfully graduated from Berkeley. As a student of color, I struggled to adjust to the rigorous academic environment at Cal, but found an amazing support system in the ES faculty, staff, and students. I spent the large majority of my undergraduate career in Barrows, taking classes in the basement and 1st floors and meeting with the incredible professors at the Ethnic Studies Department on the 5th floor. Barrows' racist comments are horrendous on their own. However, UC Berkeley should be deeply ashamed that they emphasize a commitment to diversity and inclusion, while simultaneously housing their Ethnic Studies AND African American Studies Departments in a building named after a man that openly dehumanized Blacks, Filipinos, Indigenous people, and other people of color. I was very aware of Barrows' comments as student. For years, we have been pushing for his name to be removed from a building that we consider a sanctuary and a home. The Ethnic Studies Department is responsible for recruiting and hiring a LARGE majority of the professors of color at Cal. For Berkeley to then house their offices in a building named after a man that considered them to be savages and brutes, is very telling of how much UC Berkeley cares about hiring and RETAINING a diverse faculty. I implore UC Berkeley to make the small, yet significant change and wipe that white supremacist's name from our campus for good.
7/15/2020 8:34:22 I strongly support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall given the long public history of advocating racism and White Supremacy by David Barrows.
7/15/2020 8:36:12 Barrows Hall represents a long history of white supremacy and racialized violence. It was very easy for me, as a freshman, to learn about Barrows and how his legacy hurts BIPOC within our broader UC Berkeley community. A much longer process of reparation is needed--this begins with un-naming Barrows and similar buildings with a painful history.
7/15/2020 9:07:13 Students have been advocating for Barrows Hall ever since I was a student on the campus (2015) and I am now a staff member. If you were to rename Barrows Hall and other campus buildings, I believe it is also important to acknowledge the work now and before that of the students and other members of the community before.
7/15/2020 10:30:26 Thanks for the information about who Barrows was. I agree we should rename the building.

I suggest the new name should honor Margy Wilkinson, 1943-2020, whose parents were working class activists. She got her BA at UCB in 1966, worked at UCB for 40 years, led a strike for pay equality for service workers, was the CalBand mom, organized a local chapter of AFSCME, helped create CUE, the union for clerical workers (19,000 statewide) and was its chief negotiator. The driving force in the labor movement at UC for over 40 years, according to the SF Chronicle 7/13/20, pages B1-B2. (by Sam Whiting, swhiting@sfchronicle.com)

She demonstrated in the Free Speech Movement, in favor of Black Panthers and Angela Davis, and was part of many other progressive causes. She was a leader at KPFA radio and became executive director of Pacifica Foundation (the national group overseeing KPFA and other listener supported progressive radio stations), where she refused pay. She was known for navigating fractious organizations by listening to everybody, even the people she disagreed with, and was well-loved.

Married for 50 years to a forklift driver active in the ILWU. Co founder of Friends of Adeline, fighting gentrification in her South Berkeley neighborhood.

Wow - she should have a building named after her for many reasons!
7/15/2020 11:10:00 In my perspective as a Berkeley Law student of Pilipina descent, I see the un-naming of Barrows Hall as an important step in the process of transformative justice. The name Barrows should not enjoy any place of pride or prominence because it represents and promotes the legacy of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, imperialism, and settler state colonialism.
7/15/2020 11:14:42 I believe that the current name of Barrows Hall unjustly honors a person who promoted racist systems and sentiments in their lifetimes. Continuing to honor this legacy is especially harmful to the Indigenous, Black, and Brown campus community members and undermines both the integrity of UC Berkeley and the inclusive campus climate we are trying to build. I therefore request that Barrows Hall be un-named and a name new be chosen in the future.
7/15/2020 12:24:34 I am an incoming student. Based on what I read in the proposal, it seems reasonable to un-name or rename the hall.
7/15/2020 13:36:10 Very glad this is finally taking place! #assatashakurhall
7/15/2020 13:38:39 I am very glad this is finally taking place! #assatashakurhall
7/15/2020 13:39:35 We should not continue to honor those whose work demeans members of our campus and society at large. Continuing to keep the Barrows name on the building suggests that the campus community still sees value in his horrid views. I whole-heartedly support the proposal to rename the building
7/15/2020 13:51:07 We do not need to continue to glorify racists at UC Berkeley, especially in a building that houses African American Studies, Ethnic Studies and Gender and Women Studies. UC Berkeley must do better!!!!
7/15/2020 14:58:56 Removing the names of white supremacists from campus buildings is an important step toward building a more equitable, inclusive university
7/15/2020 15:57:50 This is a long-awaited change! Please expedite the removal of this name as we dismantle symbols of oppression on campus.
7/15/2020 16:01:47 I am an Afro-Filipina political science major. Barrows is integral to my studies yet it's named after a colonizer who used his power to suppress both Black and Filipino communities. He's probably mad that I'm walking into his building, so let's not make it his building anymore! Name it after someone who is worthy to have a building named after them.
7/15/2020 16:11:13 This university has a responsibility to show respect to the Black, indigenous, and PoC here today by refusing to glorify the legacies of those whose rhetoric and action conflict with our values. The un-naming of Barrows is just one important step toward improving the lives of those who experience(d) marginalization at the hands of white supremacy.
7/15/2020 16:35:55 Please remove to better reflect our values of diversity, inclusion, and belonging
7/15/2020 17:03:18 I am in favor of un-naming Barrows Hall. This name upholds a legacy of white supremacy, racism, anti-Blackness, and further oppression that is detrimental to our community, especially our Black student, staff, and faculty. We need to remove this acknowledgement of systemic racism and uphold the accomplishments, dignity, love, and value of our Black community.
7/15/2020 17:12:09 No contribution is worth more than the denial of humanity and perpetuation of racism. Instead, California should be celebrating the contributions of its Black students, staff, faculty pas and present.
7/15/2020 17:22:33 Please remove this problematic person's name
7/15/2020 17:27:29 I am in absolute favor of un-naming Barrows Hall and feel deep gratitude to Melissa & Takiyah for providing a thorough rationale for this un-naming. If we are to truly stand for equity and inclusion then we must dismantle the symbols, systems, and structures that glorify and pay homage to people known to propagate division, oppression and white supremacy.
7/15/2020 17:34:07 No, thank you.
7/15/2020 17:38:24 Stop holding up symbols of white supremacy
7/15/2020 19:12:43 Especially because Barrows is home to Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Asian Diaspora Studies, Sociology and Political Science -- all of which have many students, faculty, and staff of color and all of which focus on racial relations and the ways to make them more just -- I firmly support the un-naming of Barrows Hall. I spent many years in the building as a sociology PhD student, so I feel very strongly about this. I'm embarrassed to say I was previously unaware of the biography of Barrows.
7/15/2020 19:29:35 DECOLONIZE
7/15/2020 20:42:11 name it after a black woman
7/15/2020 21:10:24 None
7/16/2020 10:10:55 Barrows was A SLAVE OWNER. Barrows hall literally holds the departments of ethnic studies and the African studies department. It is a shame that it takes this long for the building to be unnamed- a reflection of how UC Berkeley continues to not listen to its Black, Indigenous, and brown students.
7/16/2020 10:15:41 The individual who the building is currently named after actively supported & perpetuated racist ideals that contradict the values of UC Berkeley & stand in opposition with efforts to make this campus more welcoming to Black & Brown students
7/16/2020 11:26:55 If renaming Barrows Hall helps heal our communities, I'm all for it. As a Haas alum who toiled in the hall during my time as a student, I'll probably still call it the "Barrows Dungeon". But happy to have a new name to better reflect our values on campus.
7/16/2020 11:29:19 I support the un-naming proposal for Barrows Hall.
7/16/2020 12:51:40 It's past time.
7/16/2020 13:19:35 Solidarity looks like recognition of the part you’ve played to perpetuate pain. Un name this hall.
7/16/2020 14:57:35 Un-naming these buildings will end the celebration of our connection to these people and their documented racism
7/16/2020 15:55:53 David Barrows created an education system that continues to preach imperialism and oppress my country of the Philippines. End this insult immediately.
7/16/2020 16:02:29 About time! We should not be honoring racist people with legacies of white supremacy. Barrows is a horrible man who helped further oppress black people in Northern Africa and Philippinx people in the Philippines.
7/17/2020 11:06:02 The university should not be honoring racists
7/17/2020 11:24:57 UC Berkeley has a long history of complicity in racism and genocide. The least we can do is to fully reckon with this history and the implications of whose names we choose to honor on campus buildings. David Barrows was explicitly white supremacist, anti-Black, xenophobic, and pro-colonialism in both his words and actions. He is completely unfit to be honored and celebrated through a campus building name. His name is a threat to Black, Indigenous, and people of color on this campus, and contributes to maintaining a white-dominated campus. We must reckon with and move forward from our white supremacist history and present, and make this university a truly safe and equitable place. Removing Barrows' name is a small and critical first step to do this.
7/17/2020 15:04:48 I believe un-naming Barrows Hall is important in order to send a message that racist ideology will no longer be tolerated at Berkeley. If Berkeley wants to ensure that campus is a safe space for students of color, un-naming buildings named after racists is a good first step.
7/17/2020 15:09:04 I support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall due to his legacy of racist views. Un-naming Barrows Hall is one more step towards dismantling the harms of institutional racism and white supremacy and to invite collective healing.
7/17/2020 15:40:26 I completed my PhD at Berkeley and also volunteered at KALX in the basement of Barrows. I now teach at UNC-Greensboro, which recently renamed Aycock Auditorium that had honored a former state governor who was a proud white supremacist. The Building Name Review Committee now has a chance to do the same and demonstrate to students, faculty, staff, and alumni--particularly those of color--that Barrows' racist and imperialist commitments no longer reflect Berkeley's values. As an alum, I wholeheartedly approve the long-overdue denaming of Barrows Hall.
7/17/2020 16:59:38 The anti-Black and anti-Filipinx views of David Prescott Barrows should no longer be memorialized in our campus community, even as a namesake.
7/18/2020 0:22:55 This building hold the Ethnic Studies department- a Place near and dear to my heart. Having to study in a building named after a man who worked against diversity is disheartening.
7/18/2020 0:41:19 Thank you for bringing attention to this!
7/19/2020 10:25:08 I strongly support renaming Barrows Hall.
7/19/2020 17:19:46 I have had many classes in this building. As a student and staff member at UC Berkeley, it is absurd that I am expected to achieve my educational and professional goals in a building named after an individual so openly hostile about the existence of my bloodline. There is no secret about his views of Filipinos. Without a doubt, we know he viewed my ancestry as intellectually subpar and morally inept. The name on this building continues to invalidate the history and ability of my heritage and is a constant reminder of the racism that people of color, especially students of color, continue to endure at the university. This invalidation permeates the classroom, always reminding students like myself that we are forced to learn in an environment where we are not fully welcome. UC Berkeley, which lauds its accomplishments in diversity and inclusion, upholds this invalidation and racism by leaving this name, and others like it, unchanged. If UC Berkeley declines to remove this name, the lack of action will be another failure of the university to offer the most basic respect and empathy that marginalized communities deserve.
7/20/2020 9:54:01 I wholeheartedly support this proposal to un-name Barrows Hall, an action that is long overdue. There is more than enough information available in the proposal to prove that the racist legacy of the Hall's current namesake is completely at odds with the values and principles our community aspires to. Further, while the information gathered in the proposal provides a clear and succinct overview of David Prescott Barrows' extremely violent ideologies, this information is neither new, nor difficult for us as members of the University to access. That it must be presented in this manner at all to make a case for the un-naming of the Hall tells us much about the many opportunities and responsibilities we collectively have to make UC Berkeley actively anti-racist as a campus. My gratitude and respect go to everyone who has contributed to this proposal and its powerful conclusion:

". . . We challenge all campus leaders, faculty, staff, and students to think systematically about what more needs to be done to repair damage done by Barrows and to counteract the effects of centuries of systemic racism in this country. . . This is an opportunity for resilience and empowering student-driven community building . . ."
7/20/2020 12:24:18 It's about time we reexamined our history with a modern lens and critically reevaluate the types of people that we honor.
7/20/2020 20:12:47 I am a graduate student in the sociology department and, when campus is open, I am in Barrows Hall most days. I believe the name does a deep disservice to all of the people inside the building and all the intellectual and educational work that happens there. It makes my colleagues and undergraduate students feel uncomfortable and excluded. Particularly as a space where so many of us do our teaching and learning, I don't understand why our classrooms, offices, and meeting spaces bear the name of an individual with educational values anathema to Berkeley's spirit of inclusion and exploration -- let alone an individual who actively voiced hateful and degrading views towards people like many of those with me in Barrows every day. As the petition details, he did not in his time for strive for an intellectual engagement with the world that was curious, open, and inclusive. We should not be asked to strive for one in a hall that bears his name. This strikes me as a rare problem with a simple solution. I would like to see the hall un-named.
7/21/2020 11:32:21 I teach in Barrows Hall, I have an office there, and I regularly interact with students in the classroom, my office and other public spaces in Barrows Hall. Further, I regularly meet with visitors to campus in the building, including both fellow academics or members of the public who attend conferences, public talks and workshops, as well as current donors to the university. Barrows Hall is thus a hub of activity for research, teaching, and mentoring, and it is a building where those from outside campus come on a recurring basis to participate in and contribute to university business. It is consequently vital that the building currently named Barrows Hall be perceived as a welcoming and inclusive space. The submitted report makes clear that as it is currently named, the building fails to extend that welcome to all who enter. I therefore support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall.
7/21/2020 15:37:11 As a UC Berkeley undergraduate, I am adding my voice to the proposal to un-name Barrows hall. This is a small and necessary step for the University administration to address white supremacy on its campus(es).

In my three years at UC Berkeley, I have listened to many of my peers express their anger and pain in response to the naming of Barrows Hall. As the University continues to celebrate the legacy of racism, colonialism, and white supremacy, it actively does harm to its students, faculty, and community members of color. This cannot be a truly welcoming or inclusive campus until we reckon with the hatred and inequality imbedded in its structure (and in this case, infrastructure).
7/21/2020 17:47:28 Barrows was a colonizer and we can do much better by memorializing someone who is an actually important historical representative of the marginalized communities that the university and this building claim to serve.
7/21/2020 22:42:23 Students of color continue to feel unsafe and unwelcome on our campus. We shouldn't have to explain to y'all why having buildings on campus named after racist people is problematic and harmful. I hope you all take the time to learn who Barrows is for yourselves and understand why we even bring this matter up. If this university continues to use diversity on your banners and pamphlets to showcase what Berkeley's about, we need to see action from y'all to show that you actually care about these "diverse faces" you're plastering all over campus and on your pamphlets. It's one thing to say you're about diversity, it's another thing to SHOW that you are doing the INCLUSION work of making the institution a safe space for communities of color. Un-naming Barrows Hall is one way, one step to showing us that. Let's do the active work of supporting our students of color, please.
7/22/2020 0:11:14 As a Pilipinx student that recently graduated from Cal, I had the opportunity to unlearn the false narratives created by the White, male, euro-centric point of view about my people and other BIPOC. I’ve learned truths that have been erased and not taught to me my whole life in the education system through the communities of color that supported me and my growth at UC Berkeley, both students and the few multicultural organizations at Cal. When I first found out about the dark hxstory connected to the man who’s Barrows Hall was named after, I felt and still feel appalled, disappointed, and disgusted knowing that the university I was attending allowed this to happen and be maintained. I stand and fully support the students, faculty, and organizations proposal to un-name “Barrows” Hall. This has been long overdue and must be a priority. I urge the campus administration and Building Name Review committee to support this proposal so that UC Berkeley can move towards becoming a better place for Black, Indigenous, Pilipinx, communities of color.
7/22/2020 11:35:18 Barrows' racist views and actions disqualify him as someone to be honored with a building name on the Berkeley campus.
7/22/2020 14:42:29 Barrow Hall needs a name change. It’s synonymous with harmful rhetoric and ideals. The name has been overlooked by the institution for too long.
7/22/2020 15:36:28 Please rename after Congressman John Lewis
7/22/2020 18:03:18 Our building names should represent our values
7/23/2020 13:56:10 I am very much in favor of the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall especially since many of the Ethnic Studies departments and other great departments committed to knowledge and ways of knowing about indigenous and people of color (and un-learning oppressive systems of knowledge) are housed in that building.
7/23/2020 16:29:56 remove the name it's racist and it's that simple
7/24/2020 17:53:49 Given the comments included in the proposal, it seems appropriate to re-name Barrows Hall.
7/25/2020 15:07:58 I also support this proposal.
7/26/2020 11:34:43 The name of Barrows Hall represents not only a history of anti-Black, anti-Filipinx, and anti-Indigenous speech and policymaking, but also of the objectification of Asian women as sexual objects. Barrows promoted a damaging view of Filipina hypersexuality, claiming that "their vices are almost entirely based on sexual passion," as reported in the proposal to un-name the building. Asian women still regularly endure these dangerous stereotypes on the UC Berkeley campus and throughout the world. As an Asian female alumna, I personally hope to never enter Barrows Hall again under that building name.
7/26/2020 13:42:11 As a PhD candidate in sociology, much of my time at Berkeley has been spent and will continue to revolve around the building known as Barrows Hall. The historical figure Barrows was known in his life for vehement anti-blackness, for anti-indigeneity, and as a staunch supporter of colonialism and colonialist projects. It is unnerving and offensive to study socioeconomic inequality and injustice, as I do, in a building named for him. I am deeply disturbed that people who share positionalities with groups Barrows sought to dominate and destroy -- my colleagues, students, and campus faculty and staff -- have to move on a daily basis in a space that honors him. I strongly urge the committee to un-name Barrows Hall and begin a community process of identifying a new name that celebrates -- rather than denigrates -- the many people and walks of life that make Berkeley great. Such a change can't undo the harms members of our community have experienced as a result of the honor our campus has so far bestowed on Barrows, but it can begin a much-needed process of acknowledgement and redress.
7/26/2020 22:54:03 Barrows represents a United States that neglects the feelings and desires of BIPOC, and even insists they want to be subjugated. It is not appropriate for his name to be honored on a building.
7/27/2020 14:04:16 Racists do not deserve to have a building at Berkeley named after them.
8/3/2020 1:52:58 Barrows described Philippinxs as "savages" and instituted a system of education mean to "civilize...the vicious system of teaching current in Filipino schools." He described Black people as living like "wild beasts" who were "much more barbarous and wild than" Philippinxs. If this building is not renamed after you are now aware of the extremely racist and vile things Barrows said, it will only go to show what values our university is truly built on. I urge you to rename Barrows Hall.
8/3/2020 17:05:33 Remove the name "Barrows" from this hall! The appalling legacy of racism toward Black and Brown people perpetuated by Barrows should be illuminated through the education of our community, not honored by retaining the name of this hall.
8/3/2020 18:50:01 rename
8/4/2020 10:06:27 Many of us spend our days in Barrows Hall creating scholarship and educational spaces that combat the anti-Blackness and other forms of systemic racism endemic to U.S. society. Our building should have a name that reflects that spirit of resistance and honors the humanity of all members of our community.
8/4/2020 14:56:04 I support the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall.
8/4/2020 17:08:25 Black members of the campus community (particularly Black women) have donated untold hours of unpaid effort to get Barrows un-named. Please do it.
8/5/2020 10:06:35 I agree that un-naming Barrows Hall signals an important effort to be a more welcoming and inclusive campus. We need to stop perpetuating generational bigotry, and start healing.
8/5/2020 12:56:00 I support the activists, students, artists, and staff members who have advocated for removing the name Barrows from Barrows Hall
8/5/2020 14:24:40 The link between naming and physical space as an activity of historical selection, honoring and memorialization are obscenely clear. It is unquestionable that the name Barrows is not neutral and in fact reverberates the pleasing preference of a violent past, today. Unname without further ado, immediately. I hope this will be obvious. Do not waste anymore of your generous faculty and staff brilliance resource on this baleful issue. Thanks.
8/5/2020 15:45:01 I am a Filipinx-American staff person since 2018 and an alumnus of UC Berkeley. As an undergrad, I sought out courses on the histories and contemporary realities of my communities and my parents' home communities prior to their immigration to the United States. It was a painful irony that some of those courses were taught in a building named after David Barrows with a bust of its very namesake greeting my classmates and me. The university's continued celebration of a white supremacist who vehemently degraded the very people who learn and work at this university is reprehensible and this proposal underscores both the long legacies of community members demanding this un-naming and the undeniable evidence in support.
8/6/2020 15:48:07 Any building name on campus that is harmful to Black and Brown students, faculty, and staff and undermines the integrity of our university needs to be removed.
8/6/2020 21:21:20 I think it would be in the university's best interest to distance itself from figures of historically known injustice.
8/7/2020 10:02:42 Naming a building after someone is intended to honor someone, and David Prescott Barrows is not someone we should honor or remember favorably. Barrows was a clear racist and white supremacist who supported colonialism and violent suppression. Barrows Hall should be renamed if Berkeley wishes to create an environment that is welcoming to students and faculty of all races and backgrounds. I would love to see the building renamed to honor a Black and Filipinx person of note. Furthermore, un-naming the hall should be used as a moment to reflect upon the university's history of racism in order to help our community heal and move forward in the fight to dismantle systemic racism.
8/7/2020 11:05:26 Barrows was a eugenicist and phrenologist who wrote instructions for his anthropology volunteers in the Philippines to gather skull measurements for purposes of racial typology (he was particularly obsessed with what he called the "savage negrito" type). His educational projects were peak "white man's burden," discussing how his American teachers "know the Philippine Islands and the Filipino people as no other body of white people will’ ever know them again...[showing] how one race may guide and strengthen another" (David P. Barrows, Education and Social Progress in the Philippines, 1907, 81-82). He was a tool of this colonial war, directing his volunteers to gather information on insurgent populations concerning "Are they warlike and troublesome? If so, how can they best be controlled?" (David P. Barrows, The Bureau of Non-christian Tribes for the Philippine Islands: Circular of Information, Instructions for Volunteer Field Workers, 1901, 14). The hall should be renamed, but this symbolic gesture should only be the precursor of more material structural moves. While we're at it, UC Berkeley should return the Native American bones held at Heart Museum to their relatives. We should also defund and dismantle UCPD and, for once, actually provide substantive funding for student mental health services.
8/7/2020 16:58:40 The racist legacy of David Prescott Barrows condemned, not honored.
8/9/2020 9:53:16 As this proposal makes clear, renaming Barrows Hall is a critical step towards dismantling white supremacy on this campus. As currently named, the continuous reminder and upholding of Barrows' legacy is actively harmful to Black and Brown students, faculty, staff, and visitors to this campus and sends a message in opposition to the values the university claims to hold. The name must change if we are to start reckoning with and actively fighting anti-Black racism and xenophobia on this campus.
8/10/2020 9:26:16 I don't believe UC Berkeley should be glorifying white supremacists
8/10/2020 15:21:55 If UC Berkeley wants to improve campus climate, they should begin to remove the names of racists.
8/11/2020 16:42:36 Please do something now. We CANNOT glorify a racist person and their actions on this campus.
8/11/2020 17:36:10 It needs to be done
8/12/2020 7:58:15 I am in favor of the proposal to un-name Barrows Hall because as a community we need to recognize that not all of our past is something to be honored. Even though Barrows was at one time President of this University it does not mean that we should support or honor white supremacy which from the proposal it is clear that he supported. This is a small step towards truly becoming a welcoming and supportive environment and will be impactful to many marginalized groups that are a part of the campus community.
8/12/2020 13:34:13 I am wholeheartedly in favor of unnaming Barrows Hall.
8/13/2020 15:04:12 To quote Melissa Charles and Takiyah Jackson: "Naming a building after a person is an honor, and for Black and Filipinx students and scholars —as well as many others from historically marginalized communities across our campus — the decision to continue honoring Barrows constitutes tacit approval of a significant and lasting legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, and violent oppression. This is harmful, and Barrows cannot stand as a symbol of what we value on the Berkeley campus." In addition, I am excited about the opportunity for our campus community to select a new building name that represents the values and goals which we strive to embody.
8/14/2020 9:56:27 Any building commemorating the memory of member(s) of a government which uses systematic methods to oppress a people does not deserve to be remembered as a foundational figure of a community, nor hero. Stop hiding in a guise of "larger contributions to humanity" if the science(s) an individual discovered was on the backs of and at the expense of other humans (indigenous, Black, Brown, Filipinx).
8/14/2020 12:12:09 It is about time.
8/14/2020 13:42:32 My office was in Barrows Hall. The name always grated on me. A very inclusive racist, David P. Barrows argued in 1928 that Japanese should not be allowed to own land in California because they would try to take it over for Japan. After 1913, persons with 9/16 or more Japanese blood were denied what aliens and citizens of all colors were granted without limit in America.
8/14/2020 15:12:34 David Barrows views and practices were antithetical to the ideals of a democratic society. He was a racist, a colonizer, anti-Asian and anti-Black. For these reasons, we need to remove his name from the building.
8/14/2020 16:04:10 As a faculty of Ethnic Studies and the Asian American Studies & Asian Diasporat Studies program, I am writing to let you know that I am in favor of this proposal to un-name Barrows Hall. This is an important step our campus should take as we continue to recognize our campus history and its history of institutional discrimination among it's members and structures and try to raise public awareness of our campus histories and seek solutions together to address these longstanding historical inequities and find a new name for Barrows Hall, as we continue our quest to change and improve our campus culture to be more diverse, open, and inclusive move forward. We should not forget our nation's structural racism/imperialism/colonial histories and need to speak the truth about all of our social histories, not just the histories and ideologlies constructed over generations by those with authority/power and privilege. We have a commitment and responsibility to continue to educate our students and future generations here at Cal about all of our rich, diverse American histories across all racial, ethnic, and indigenous peoples, so no one is forgotten.
8/15/2020 10:00:54 The white supremacist viewpoints of Mr Barrows are simply not in alignment with UC Berkeley's Principles of Community. To grow we must change, and it seems appropriate now to change the name of this building.
Now, because black and brown students first proposed this change in 2015.
Now, because Chancellor Carol Christ wrote in 2020 that "it is our role and responsibility to examine and teach about the critical, challenging and at times thorny issues facing our society," in reference to George Floyd's death.
Now, because Chancellor Carol Christ wrote in 2020 that "We must call out and hold accountable our broken structures, build bridges that will lead to mutual understanding and respect across differences."
Un-naming Barrows Hall is a way to hold accountable our broken structures and building bridges with our black and brown students. Let's have UC Berkeley be a leader and show other institutions of higher education how to grow, by changing. Let's start that growth by changing the name of Barrows Hall.

Opposed to the proposal to remove the name Barrows Hall
Timestamp Comment:
8/29/2020 20:36:59 I think barrows is an apt name for how creepy the building and its namesake are.
7/13/2020 18:29:32 The donor donated much of his fortune so that the music department and the Berkeley community of today can flourish. For this reason, our community is indebted and must continue to honor their commitment to our wonderful and diverse University.
7/14/2020 1:45:30 We do not need to erase a part of Berkeley's history to pander to a small and vocal group that ignores historical context on social mores and forgets all the good done by Barrows
7/14/2020 2:53:23 The proposal lacks proper acknowledgment of the work Barrows did during his time. His extensive research regarding the customs and culture of Native Americans along with his experience in Morocco demonstrates his passion for learning and understanding others. Many of the critiques of his stances are taken out of context and do not properly gauge cultural standards of the time. His globalized perspective for the time was already extremely progressive and acted as a stepping stone for future research across the globe. With regards to his work in the Philippine Islands he became the superintendent of the schools across the land and helped restructure and grow educational opportunities across the country. I think that Barrows acts as an important figure in the development of the American education system. Deleting his name from UC history would do a disservice to the progress that education has made. Equality in education had to start from somewhere and although the past has some racist characterizations, forgetting the origins of change is forgetting the progress that has been so integral to our development as a society and species.
7/14/2020 8:23:13 Just because the person is racist does not necessarily veto everything he/she did. In addition, one person grew in a certain cultural context, it is not entirely his/her fault to hold one particular view on people. Finally, the Barrows Hall building name for me does not have much association with the person, instead this name reminds me of all the classes I took there. I imagine this is the name for many of the students ---- building name is just a name, not that person. There are just so many classes held in Barrows Hall, I think removing the name might be removing some common memories for all UC Berkeley Students. Again, I don't think people actually think about the ex-president Barrows. I do not think we have the full justification to entirely remove the building's name just because some problemetic writing he did.
7/14/2020 11:19:39 Of course I am opposed: You have given no explanation as to what motivated the proposal. What kind of "poll" is that?
7/14/2020 21:05:52 If we changed the name, make it worth. I nominate it should be changed to Uvuvwevwevwe Onyetenyevwe Ugwemubwem Ossas hall

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