Iowa State will keep Catt Hall name, for now

AMES — Two-and-a-half years after Iowa State University began a review of its naming of Catt Hall after controversial women’s suffrage-leader Carrie Chapman Catt, a review committee last week cast an initial — but not unanimous — vote to keep the name on the central campus academic building.

At the committee’s Aug. 25 meeting, nine members voted to keep the name and six voted no. Because ISU policy instructs two-thirds of the committee must agree to remove a name, it will stay for now.

But officials said the review isn’t over, and the committee will receive and review public comment over the next 60 days before taking a second and final vote after the comment period wraps Oct. 29.

“All feedback received will become part of the official public record of the work of this committee,” according to an executive summary of its initial draft report, which acknowledged “negatives in Catt’s story and history.”

“But those members of the committee that voted to retain Catt’s name believe the negatives are substantially outweighed by the positive achievements of Catt’s life and leadership.”

The committee cast its initial vote after meeting 27 times since its inception in March 2021 — following uproar over an ISU plaque honoring W.T. Hornaday.

Hornaday attended Iowa State in the 1870s before serving in the early 1900s as inaugural director of the Bronx Zoo, where he curated an exhibit caging a Congolese man in the “Monkey House” with an orangutan.

Criticism more than a century later of Iowa State’s choice to honor him compelled campus officials in November 2020 to unveil new policy language, principles and procedures for removing names from campus spaces — including the appointment of a name-removal committee.

Iowa State removed the Hornaday plaque, pending a name-removal committee examination. But — receiving 21 requests from students, staff, alumni to review Catt Hall — the new committee made Catt its first assignment.

Committee charge

Catt graduated from Iowa State in 1880 — the only woman in her graduating class — and later joined state and national efforts to advocate for woman suffrage. She eventually succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and led an effort culminating in the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

But critics — including those around the time of the Catt Hall renaming in 1995 — have accused her of holding “racist, anti-Black, classist, ableist, and xenophobic beliefs,” with more than 4,760 people signing a current online petition to “rename Catt Hall.”

“In an attempt to sway Southern states in favor of the 19th Amendment, Catt rallied white politicians by claiming that ‘white supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by women’s suffrage,’ ” according to the petition launched in June 2020.

In evaluating Catt’s historic significance to Iowa State — warranting its founding of a Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics in 1992 and dedicating the botany building to Catt three years later — the committee over the last two years reviewed nearly 250 historical documents from libraries, archives, and databases nationally.

It interviewed a dozen people with knowledge and expertise on Catt and events surrounding “both the building’s naming and the aftermath.”

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The committee’s draft report addressed each principle outlined in ISU’s new policy on renaming requests — including the honoree’s connection to Iowa State; potential harm or benefit of keeping or removing the name; what impact an honoree’s behavior has had on their legacy; what factual evidence exists; and past reviews of the issue.

The committee also asked whether alternatives exist to name removal.

“The committee did not find alternatives or compromises that would be acceptable either to those seeking the removal of Catt’s name or those supporting the original naming of Catt Hall,” according to the draft report. “Of the 21 requests submitted to rename Catt Hall, everyone asserted that removing the name was the only remedy.”

'Ambiguous figure’

Addressing the principles they were tasked to consider per each ISU name-review request, the committee started with the question of Catt’s relationship to Iowa State.

She was a graduate, alumna, recipient of an honorary degree, campus speaker and donor. As a student, she joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority and spearheaded two firsts for ISU women — initiating military exercises and drills for them and becoming the first woman to deliver an oration in the school debating society.

In 1921, Catt became the first woman to give an ISU commencement address and returned for another in 1930. When she died at age 88 in 1947, she gifted her estate to Iowa State — creating an endowment with a balance of $240,000, equal to about $3.3 million today.

In assessing the potential harm or benefit Iowa State would experience from using or removing her name from Catt Hall, the committee asked whether its continued use would “contradict applicable law, policies, procedures, or strategic objectives of the university” — especially its mission and principles.

The answer to that question is tied to the principle evaluating her legacy — and how her controversial behavior has affected it — and factual evidence supporting or rebuffing allegations of racism, classism and xenophobia.

“The crux of the matter is that while Catt made statements that are likely to be considered racist, there is also an abundance of declarations upholding and even defending other races,” according to the committee report. “This duality and implicit contradiction is what makes the work of this committee very difficult — and it is what makes Catt such an ambiguous figure when it comes to questions of racism.”

This isn’t the first time Iowa State has been called to review the Catt Hall name — with the most significant inquiry coming in 1998, when a committee spent seven months studying the issue, producing a 220-page report.

That committee also couldn’t come to a unanimous decision on whether or not to rename the hall, offering instead a list of recommendations like offering an “experimental course on Catt for undergraduates.”

In summary, the present-day committee — following its initial vote — recommended retaining the name Catt Hall.

“Those members of the committee that voted to retain Catt’s name feel Catt should be held up as an exemplar of what one can do with an Iowa State University education — to apply that knowledge in making a difference in the local community, state, nation, and world,” according to the report.

Conversely, those against keeping it felt “the name of Carrie Chapman Catt goes against the university’s ideals of access and a welcoming and inclusive environment, and that views expressed by Catt are inconsistent with the university’s principles of community.“

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com