Will Cesar Chavez's name be removed from a Stony Brook University dorm? If so, it will take time
A student walks past Chavez Hall at Stony Brook University Tuesday. Credit: Elizabeth Sagarin
In 2017, Stony Brook University cut the ribbon for two new dormitories honoring civil rights leader Cesar Chavez and abolitionist Harriet Tubman with 500 guests, including prominent state lawmakers and alumni.
A news release celebrated the university’s "commitment to diversity and inclusion" and quoted then-President Samuel Stanley Jr. expressing his hope students would "embrace the legacy of these two activists and think how they, too, can be agents for change."
But after The New York Times published an investigation in March that found Chavez groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the farmworkers’ movement, the university joined a host of municipalities across the country that are considering renaming schools, streets and facilities that honor him.
Although some events recognizing Chavez on his March 31 birthday have been renamed or canceled, Stony Brook’s evaluation will take months.
A timeline laid out on the university website describes a multistage process that includes formation of a renaming committee that will meet up to three times in April, deliberating on matters that include the "centrality of the person’s offensive behavior to his or her life as a whole," historical evidence and "possibilities for mitigation."
That committee will make its recommendation to university President Andrea Goldsmith, who will present her decision on renaming in May to the Stony Brook Council, a campus oversight and advisory body, possibly kicking off a new round of deliberations.
"If the final decision is to rename Chavez Hall, then the process for soliciting new names will begin in the Fall semester." The website does not say how long that will take or when a new name might actually appear on the building. About five signs on the building’s exterior would have to be changed.
A university spokeswoman, Kelly Drossel, did not make administrators available for an interview or answer emailed questions but released a statement from university officials: "We are aware of the allegations reported about César Chávez and are deeply sympathetic to the women who have come forward and to all victims of abuse and exploitation. The university has rigorously maintained policies and practices governing the naming and renaming of facilities and will take appropriate and necessary action to address these allegations in accordance with those policies and practices."
Students react
Outside Chavez Hall on Tuesday, Briana Diaz, 21, a junior from Roosevelt studying health science, said she hoped the university would rename the building for another Latino, on a timeline faster than the one the university has outlined.
"I don’t think it should be a long process," she said. "Keeping that Latino name is important, especially to Latinos on campus ... It’s one of the few things we have that represents us."
The name felt all the more important amid a federal immigration crackdown whose brunt has fallen largely on Hispanics, Diaz said.
"It impacts us all when we go home," she said. "I know people very close to me, family friends, my own family, who have been taken away."
Emma Dominguez, 18, a freshman from Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, studying political science, said she believed Chavez’s name would be removed from the building.
"I know the university does not stand for the things that he’s done," she said.
Dominguez, who grew up hearing tales of Chavez’s organizing and activism from her mother, said she felt conflicted about his legacy, but not about removing his name from the dorm.
"A certain amount of respect goes to what he’s accomplished," she said. "But overall, his actions were something that I can’t stand for."
Jake DeBlasio, 22, a senior anthropology major from Mount Sinai, said the incident called to mind a proverb: "Never meet your heroes, because they may be flawed individuals — or, in this case, actively predatory individuals." He said hagiography of Chavez had eclipsed "women, people of color, queer people" in the labor movement who also deserved credit.
Women share stories
The New York Times' reporting includes accounts of two women, sharing their stories publicly for the first time, who said they were as young as 12 when Chavez, then in his 40s, molested them in the 1970s. Another woman said Chavez raped her in 1966.
Chavez, who started working as a labor organizer in the 1950s, later led marches, fasts and strikes like the one in the Delano, California, grape fields, work that made him famous. He died in 1993 at age 66.
Several states recognized a day on or near his birthday as an annual holiday, and in 2014 President Barack Obama signed a proclamation commemorating March 31 as César Chavez Day.
Reaction to the Times story was swift. United Farm Workers, the union Chavez helped found, announced it would not take part in any events named after him. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to rename César Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day. Minnesota lawmakers took similar action.
Goldsmith announced Stony Brook’s response in a March 19 public letter titled "Initiating the Building Renaming Review Process." She said she was "deeply troubled" to learn of the allegations about Chavez. "When there is a compelling reason to do so, we follow our rigorously maintained policies and practices governing the naming and renaming of facilities."
With AP
Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.
