WWU drops ‘Huxley’ name from College of the Environment

The Western Washington University Board of Trustees voted Thursday, Dec. 9, to remove the “Huxley” name from what will now be known as the College of the Environment, the school announced in a letter to the community Friday. The vote followed a recommendation to remove the name submitted by the Legacy Review Task Force in June, after the task force found Thomas Henry Huxley’s “views about natural racial and gender inequalities, the role of these hierarchical views in the application of Darwin’s theory of evolution to humans, and the development of scientific racism more generally” conflicted with the university’s mission and commitment to inclusion.