2 schools named after eugenics advocates to get new names

School officials in Palo Alto have unanimously voted to rename two middle schools that bear the names of leaders in the eugenics movement.

The Mercury News reports the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education voted Friday 5-0 to rename Jordan Middle School, which is named after David Starr Jordan, and Terman Middle School, which is named after Lewis Terman.

Terman was a former Stanford psychologist and Jordan was an accomplished scientist and Stanford’s founding president.

Both were members of the Human Betterment Foundation, a group that believed the human race could be improved through selective reproduction including forced sterilization.

Pressure to change the schools’ names started after a seventh-grade student at Jordan Middle School wrote a book report on Jordan and shared what he had learned about the school’s namesake.