Bryn Mawr to downplay legacy of its 2nd president
In 1935, Bryn Mawr College named its original library and Great Hall meeting room for its second, and perhaps most influential, president, M. Carey Thomas, who had died that year.
A leading suffragist and champion of women’s rights, Ms. Thomas led the women’s college near Philadelphia from 1894 to 1922 and was revered.
But in recent years, some on campus had begun to question her legacy, pointing to her unwillingness to admit black students or hire Jewish faculty. The controversy grew in the wake of last year’s deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and as more campuses began to confront and re-examine current and past incidents of racism.
On Wednesday, Bryn Mawr announced that its trustees had adopted the recommendations of a campus panel and decided to give Ms. Thomas far less prominence on the Main Line campus and among its awards and promotional materials. While her name won’t be physically stripped from the library, neither it nor the Great Hall will be referred to as Thomas on the college’s website, in printed materials or in basic conversation.
Instead, they will be called the Old Library and the Great Hall, similar to their original names, trustees said.
In addition, the M. Carey Thomas Award, which had been given annually to “an American woman in recognition of eminent achievement,” will no longer carry her name. Neither will two annual writing prizes given by the college.
They will be known as the Bryn Mawr College prize or award, though the published description of the prizes and awards will include their history.
“In leaving M. Carey Thomas’ name on the building and not renaming it in another person’s honor, we will continue to value president Thomas’ many remarkable contributions to the college,” Ann Logan, president of the trustees, wrote in a letter to the campus community Wednesday. “The inscription also reminds us to confront all aspects of Thomas’ legacy and to tell our full history.”
Trustees also directed college administrators to find ways to fully communicate Ms. Thomas’ past. In a separate letter Wednesday to the community, Bryn Mawr president Kim Cassidy announced the formation of two groups to undertake that task, as well as other initiatives designed to improve diversity and inclusion.
About a third of Bryn Mawr’s 1,381 undergraduate students are Hispanic, black or Asian, and the college also has a significant international population.
The college, she said, will hold sessions designed to identify and overcome barriers in achieving greater diversity in the faculty-hiring process and improve crosscultural communication in the classroom.
Ms. Cassidy also announced expanded staffing for the college’s multicultural center and new donations that will create an endowed scholarship fund to support students from underrepresented groups, as well as other efforts around diversity and inclusion.
“While the discussions of the past year have at times been painful, and while they have surfaced disagreements about how we address a past marked by racism and anti-Semitism, they have also confirmed the college’s deep commitment to building a more inclusive Bryn Mawr,” Ms. Cassidy wrote.
The trustees’ letter delineated the sometimes conflicting views of the past president, noting how some see Ms. Thomas’ achievements as “empowering” and others find her racist views troubling.
“She persisted through the institutionalized sexism of three different graduate schools across two continents to earn her Ph.D., and she produced scholarship that remained highly regarded for nearly a century,” Ms. Logan wrote. “She was a national spokesperson for higher education for women, a leader in the women’s suffrage movement, and an early advocate for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
But Thomas also espoused “white racial superiority” and blocked both the hiring of Jewish faculty and admission of qualified Jewish students,wrote Ms. Logan.
“She denied a Bryn Mawr education and employment to exceptional persons because of their backgrounds,” Ms. Logan wrote. “Some said that the centrality of Thomas’ name indicates the college’s lack of understanding and acknowledgment of president Thomas’ racist and anti-Semitic beliefs, and leads them to question the college’s commitment to inclusion.”