Cal State San Marcos to remove founder’s name from building

Report characterizes Bill Craven as racist. A friend calls that ‘slanderous.’

SAN DIEGO — There was a moment at Cal State San Marcos 30 years ago when many people looked at the school’s inaugural building and asked, “Should we really being naming this after our founder, Bill Craven?”

They were thinking of the Republican state senator from Oceanside who had worked to raise the money and support needed to give northern San Diego County something it badly wanted, its own university.

But in 1993, Craven infuriated many when he said that migrant workers “are perhaps on the lower scale of humanity for one reason or another.” He also appeared to target Latinos when a proposal arose to require Californians to carry state ID cards proving they were legal residents.

Angry faculty leaders urged school officials to drop the idea of naming the building after Craven. Administrators said no. They didn’t want to alienate him. And some thought the controversy would simply blow over.

That’s not how things turned out.

In a reflection of changing times nationally, Cal State San Marcos recently sought permission to take down Craven’s name. On Wednesday, mostly without discussion, the California State University Board of Trustees gave the go-ahead.

It did not end years of arguing and resentment.

Many educators say the decision is a step toward creating a more welcome feel at a school where the enrollment is now more than 50% Latino.

“Sen. Craven did some amazing work that we are so thankful for, including me,” said Elizabeth Matthews, a political science professor. “I have this job because this campus is here . ... [But] this was the decision that needed to be made.”

Ken Lounsbery, an Escondido lawyer who was friends with the late senator for many years, sees this as an unfounded and spiteful act of political correctness.

“Calling Bill Craven a racist or white supremacist is slanderous,” Lounsbery said. “He had no prejudice.

“In the insular field of academics, it’s advantageous to win this kind of battle.

And it’s pretty easy to tee off on a dead man.”

Righting wrongs

Cal State San Marcos wasn’t stepping into the unknown in 2021 when its faculty senate began a new push to take Craven’s name off its administration building.

In recent years, scores of schools have reexamined whether the words and deeds of the people whose names appeared on their buildings were socially acceptable. In many cases, the answer was no.

This intense period of introspection was brought on by many things, including the Black Lives Matter movement, the nation’s culture wars, social media and the rise of Generation Z, the most racially and ethnically diverse generation yet. They’re filling colleges from coast to coast.

The faculty senate referred the matter to a relative newcomer, Ellen Neufeldt, who became the school’s president in 2019.

She commissioned a task force of faculty, students, alumni, staff and community members to dig into Craven’s political life, particularly during the early 1990s, when a deep recession and high immigration led to a lot of hostility toward migrants in California.

“I didn’t have an outcome in mind,” Neufeldt told the Union-Tribune. “In fact, I was new enough that I really needed to understand more myself.”

The task force released its report in mid-January. Portions of the study characterize Craven as a racist. It also recommends that his name be removed from the building.

Craven was a Philadelphia native who earned a degree in economics at Villanova University before enlisting in the Marines during World War II. He fought at Iwo Jima, a battle that killed nearly 7,000 Marines. He also was on active duty during the Korean War.

After that, he moved around, holding jobs that capitalized on his gift for communicating with people and remembering their names. He worked in radio, public relations, newspapers and sales.

His journeys eventually brought him to Oceanside, where he joined the planning commission, his springboard to a long career in government and politics. He won election to the state Assembly and later the state Senate. He died in 1999 at age 78.

Craven was a fiercely independent moderate Republican who believed in bipartisanship and regularly supported bills filed by Democrats.

Craven constantly roamed his Senate district in northern San Diego County, catering to people’s interests. That led to his long quest to convince the state to place a university in the region. In 1978, the state gave him enough money to start a branch campus of San Diego State University in Vista. The satellite evolved into an independent school with its formal founding as Cal State San Marcos in 1989.

Migrant backlash

The university’s first students enrolled in fall 1990, when the state’s unemployment rate was 6.1%. It would rise to 9.8% two years later. The recession occurred while immigration was soaring.

Craven was a major political player during this time. His work included chairing a legislative committee on border issues that commissioned a study of the financial impact of undocumented people in San Diego County. As the task force report notes, he soon suggested that every school district and city in the county conduct a head count of suspected undocumented people who used public services.

Some people saw this as racist. Craven disagreed, saying he was trying to qualify the region for more federal funds.

His remarks about the humanity of migrants weren’t as easily explained.

The incident occurred on Feb. 5, 1993, during a Senate hearing on the legal status of children in San Diego County school districts. According to a transcript of the meeting, Craven said:

“There will be a lot of people who will disagree with what I am going to say and it is just a thought I had. It is not a philosophy.

“It seems rather strange that we go out of our way to take care of the rights of these individuals who are perhaps on the lower scale of our humanity for one reason or another, and we really spend a lot of time and, obviously, a lot of money to discommode the people who pick up the tab to care of the people that the law seems to favor. Is that correct? Well, maybe I should not ask that.”

Craven was again accused of racism. He countered by saying that he was referring only to the “economic status” of undocumented immigrants.