Q and A with Laura Wagner

Student Senator Laura Wagner discusses the movement to remove “Huxley” from the College of the Environment’s name.

Story by Ben Leung

April 6, 2021

Laura Wagner works as a student senator for the Huxley College of the Environment, advocating for the removal and replacement of the Huxley name. // Laura Wagner.

Laura Wagner, Associated Students Huxley College of the Environment student senator is one of the leaders of the movement at Western Washington University to remove “Huxley” from the College of the Environment’s name. The movement stems from concerns that the writings of Thomas Huxley, the namesake of the college, are racist.

The Planet public editor Ben Leung spoke with Wagner in February about the issue. Here is their conversation, edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: Could you tell our readers why you think the Huxley name should be changed?

A: I think the best way to describe why his name should be removed and replaced was that he contributed extensively to scientific racism. At a university that prides itself on having students of marginalized identities, it’s not right to have a man who contributed to scientific racism represent one of their colleges, especially a college that prides itself on also having environmentalist and intersectional activist values. It just doesn’t represent POC and, honestly, it’s a disgrace.

Q: How long have students been advocating for the name change?

A: For two to three years, there have been students who have just excluded the Huxley name. But there hasn’t been really a mass uproar of, “change the name, change it now,” and lots of petitions and lots of students advocating. Right as it was starting to gain traction the pandemic hit. So that probably slowed what could have been a really great movement that was built up.

[My co-senator] Francis and I are trying really hard to gain as much momentum as we can with students, but it’s difficult during this distanced learning. We use Instagram as our main source for updating people There aren’t really any updates on any website under Western.

Q: How did you first become involved?

A: This all started when I was running as a candidate for Student Senate, I noticed that one of the Black Student Organization’s demands was directed at the Huxley College of the Environment, demanding a name change. I decided that because that was the only demand on there that specifically addressed the College of the Environment, it was a specific ask for whoever would represent the college to eventually change the name.

Q: Could you tell me a little bit more about the work you’ve done in advocating for the Huxley name change as a student senator?

A: As a senator, I, as well as Francis, my co-senator, have been trying to reach out to as many students as possible by attending clubs that students are still going to, talking with our friends, telling them to spread the word. We’ve been talking with faculty and getting updates from them. We talked with the dean of the College, but unfortunately, at this point, there’s nothing that the dean can really do. I will be sitting on the Legacy Review Task Force that is charged with determining whether the Huxley name should be dropped or not.

We don’t have any sort of petition yet. We might decide to create one just to show the sheer number of people who are in support of it. It’s looking like there’s a lot of faculty support behind this issue as well.

On the task force, I hope to sit with the person appointed with me and work together to advocate for not only the removal of but also the replacement of the Huxley name.

It’s not enough for the university to simply erase the racist history of the Huxley name from the college’s title after continuing to have a scientist with such damaging beliefs and work represent their college for decades. The university must do the research for a name dedication that administrators failed to do initially in the 1960s before they decided on the Huxley name.

There have been historians like Nicolaas Rupke, who have studied his harmful work. There were anthropologists who have spent decades trying to undo the damage that he had done in ethnology. Racism in medical professions was made stronger with lectures by anatomists like him who likened races to animals and claims that connection made them significantly different from white men. And biologists are still considering how his ethnologist and anatomist legacy affects his legacy in biology. Outside of these fields of studies, POC have lived the impact of the work of men like him.

Since there’s no goal for the replacement, that’s where a lot of the work needs to be done at this point. We do want to hold some sort of forum so that whoever is in charge of deciding who should replace the Huxley name hears the community’s input. It’s just ensuring that the Legacy Review Taskforce keeps in mind the community input and the community’s opinion of this harmful legacy that Thomas Huxley had before making their decision.

Q: So there’s support from the faculty, but what kind of response have you ever received from the admins?

Unfortunately, what I have heard from my predecessors is that admin typically is not very transparent or communicative within this process. I’ve heard a lot of feedback from faculty, but I haven’t heard a lot from admin. We got a statement from Paul Dunn [Western’s chief of staff and secretary to the board of trustees] about the progress of the Legacy Review Task Force, but other than that, we haven’t heard anything.

A: So how would you say the administration has handled their response to students advocating to exclude the Huxley name?

Some have stated that they were in favor of the name change, but didn’t believe that Huxley was racist. They cited a Wikipedia page stating that he was an abolitionist to back that up. And then another one that was a red flag: someone said that they wanted to hear the input of historians about this issue before deciding how to proceed with the name change. That made me a bit frustrated. I did all of this research over the course of two months of various articles or essays and letters written by Huxley, or work done by historians like Nicolaas Rupke. I’ve also heard opinions by anthropologists about Huxley. There’s even an anthropology professor here at Western who uses Huxley’s work as a proof of the damage that past anthropologists had contributed and that current anthropologists have to dismantle.

The community has already spoken. It’s been passed between the lips of College the Environment students: “So just don’t reference Huxley when you’re referring to the College of the Environment. We’re just going to choose to refer to it as the College of the Environment.” There have been students who have come forward last year and Sargun, the current pro-tempore was one of them, who stated, “I am a person of a marginalized identity. The use of his name at this university is hurtful to me, and other students like me.”

Q: What kind of alumni reactions did you receive?

A: One person who came forward brought up a really good question that I wish we had received at our public forum. They said, “I’m just wondering, why is the focus on changing the name? Seems like there are a lot of other things that could be focused on, I just don’t see why a name is so meaningful.”

I responded with, “Thomas Huxley was someone who contributed extensively to the scientific racism within the fields of ethnology and anatomy. Francis and I believe such a man should not be lauded at an institution that prides itself on the diverse backgrounds and identities of the students. But you’re right, there are a lot of other things that are “more important” that we are currently working on, such as curriculum policy representation within our college and campus-wide.”

We haven’t received anyone who has been adamantly, extremely against a name change.

Q: Is there anything I haven’t asked you about that you think would be important for our readers to know?

A: The main thing that I would like to leave readers with is we would really appreciate any support that people can lend us whether it be a written statement or talking with faculty members at their department.

We would also highly encourage students to exclude the Huxley name from the College of the Environment, because unfortunately we know that there’s no clear end in sight. As long as there is a group of students who are passionate about it, change will happen.

Note: The Legacy Review Task Force is taking comments until May 21.