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Emory University is removing the names of two men with ties to eugenics and slavery, dropping them from a research center and two professorships, the college announced Thursday.
Emory will remove the name of Robert Yerkes, a eugenics supporter, from a research facility currently known as the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Yerkes was the first director of the center, which as of June 1 will be called the Emory National Primate Research Center.
The university will also rename two professorships in the school of law that are named for L. Q. C. Lamar, whom the university described as a “staunch defender of slavery.” Lamar—an Emory graduate who wrote Mississippi’s Ordinance of Secession from the Union—served as a congressional representative and senator, a Confederate officer during the Civil War, and later a Supreme Court justice. Those appointments will now be known as Emory School of Law Distinguished Professors.
The name changes were recommended by the University Committee on Naming Honors, which has reviewed Emory namesakes since 2020 and made a number of recommendations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Emory continues to review other possible name changes.
While the newspaper reported that Emory does not plan to drop honorific titles for former Emory president Atticus Greene Haygood, a slavery supporter, it is considering removing the name of George Foster Pierce, another former president who defended slavery, from campus spaces.
