Halloween is when restless ghosts of the past return, and with the holiday approaching, it’s a fitting moment to resurrect the story of Middlebury College’s (Middlebury) renaming of Mead Memorial Chapel. On April 9, 2025, Judge Robert A. Mello of the Addison Unit of the Vermont Superior Court ruled in the college’s favor, dismissing all remaining claims brought by Jim Douglas, the former Vermont governor who served as the special administrator of Governor John A. Mead’s estate. While the court’s decision closes the case, Douglas, according to the latest
reports, has indicated he may file an appeal.
The lawsuit stemmed from Middlebury’s 2021 decision to rename Mead Memorial Chapel to Middlebury Chapel, citing “Governor John A. Mead’s role in advancing eugenics policy in the early 20th century.” The Mead family responded with a lawsuit, with descendant and Douglas commenting:
‘It essentially called Governor Mead a racist, and that’s simply false,’ … ‘John Mead was a tremendous public servant. He was a loyal alumnus. He was very generous to the college. He was quite progressive for his era. He supported women’s suffrage, tougher child labor laws, campaign finance disclosure, the direct primary, clean energy through the greater use of hydro-electric power. He did a tremendous amount of work for the people of Vermont, and to have his reputation sullied because of a couple of remarks that he made in 1912 is totally unfair.’
Mead’s 1912 farewell address, which Middlebury cites as the primary reason for removing his name from the chapel, was hardly controversial at the time. In it, Mead publicly endorsed eugenics policies as a means of addressing social issues. Yet a review of historic Middlebury course catalogs, conference clippings, newspaper articles, and other records shows that avoiding discussion of eugenics would likely have caused scandal on campus at the time. Indeed, Mead’s 1912 speech predated the early genetic discoveries that would later discredit the movement and expose its moral and scientific failings.
Additionally, this controversy didn’t arise from a sudden wave of community-wide outrage over the college’s legacy of supporting eugenics. Rather, it became an opportunity for then-president Laurie Patton to stage a show of moral courage at a moment when symbolic acts of virtue-signaling were in vogue across American higher education. Eager to demonstrate her virtue, Patton acted unilaterally, consulting seemingly no one, and showing her determination to purge the college of any lingering trace of the “benighted past.” At the very least, the Mead family should have been included, and a decision of this magnitude should have sparked a community-wide debate. Instead, it was imposed from the top, a clear exercise in personal virtue-signaling, and once it was set in motion, the trustees did what trustees so often do: they rubber-stamped the move. (Read Peter Wood’s “The virtue-signaling behind the renaming of the Middlebury College chapel.“)
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Despite this, the Vermont Superior Court’s rulings have been disappointing for the Mead family. After initially rejecting Middlebury’s motion to dismiss in 2023, later judgments continued to favor the college. In a ruling issued on October 3, 2024, Superior Judge Robert A. Mello made clear that the court would not force the college to reinstate the old name. Then, by April 2025, all questions as to whether the chapel had legally been a gift or part of a contract were adjudicated in the college’s favor, leaving the Mead family to consider an appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, lawsuits hinge on legal technicalities, rather than the moral courage to honor the complexity of the past.
In the broader lens, this mirrors a similar situation in Cal Tech, where activists smeared founder, president, and Nobel Prize winner Robert Millikan for having contemporary sympathetic views toward eugenics, long before the full horrors of the Holocaust were known. His name was also pulled from various buildings for not seeing the abomination on the horizon.
While legally defensible, this trend to erase historical leaders and benefactors who shared the tragic errors of their age is not only myopic but also morally reprehensible. (Read David Randall’s “Put the Statues Back.”)
Such cancellations lack the wisdom and humility to distinguish true ideologues, comfortable with any end-justifying-the-means strategy, from those striving to be ethical but caught up in the norms of their time. This is yet more proof that today’s culture warriors are no closer to perfection than their predecessors.
Whatever happens at the Vermont Supreme Court, the deeper issue remains: how our institutions are rewriting history to preserve their “moral authority,” while side-stepping genuine self-examination.
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The unlearned lesson of the pseudo-scientific ideology of eugenics is ironically now being replayed by the pseudo-scientific Critical Social Justice ideology believers who seek to obliterate the past. Both systems claim to improve humanity by sorting and purging the unworthy. Both systems are buoyed by the same moral arrogance that allows ranking others’ value based on vaguely defined criteria.
By renaming Mead Chapel, Middlebury is engaging in historical revisionism at the cost of its institutional integrity. This effort to weaponize morality for prestige cannot erase its long participation in the eugenics movement, nor will it absolve current injustices committed under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This is moral laundering, plain and simple, and the stains are only getting worse.
To be sure, eugenics cast a dark shadow across the 20th century, as prior ages have been tarnished by slavery, wars, and genocides going back to the dawn of recorded history. If the current popularity of “critical theories” teaches us anything, it should be that it is impossible to foresee our own malicious folly.
As an appeal is considered, Middlebury would be well served to enter its chapel and see if it can rediscover forgiveness and grace.
Future and current donating alumni are watching.
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Image: “MiddleburyCollege MeadChapelOblique” by Niranjan Arminius on Wikimedia Commons
Another thing to keep in mind is that she failed upwards, like all leftists, do.
She’s now the president of the american arts and science society 🤯😬
If the school is not pleased with Mead Chapel, then return it to his family unharmed.