Middle schools to be named after Greene Jr., Fletcher
Renamings bypass a potential controversy
One Palo Alto middle school will assume the name of an African-American memory chip inventor and another of a former city councilwoman.
The Palo Alto Unified School District board unanimously decided Tuesday that Jordan Mid- dle School should be renamed after Frank Greene Jr. and Terman Middle School after Ellen Fletcher. Inmaking those choices, it snuffed out a controversy that erupted when the name of Fred Yamamoto, an inspirational local figure with a reviled last name, was nominated.
Greene, who died in 2009, is remembered for having designed the fastest memory chip in the 1960s, being one of the first African-American founders of a publicly traded tech firm and found- ing a venture capital firm that was an early supporter of female and minority startups. Fletcher, who died in 2012, was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States and, in addition to serving as the city’smayor and council member, devoted 40 years as a volunteer for bicycling and environmental causes.
They were chosen from six finalists recommended by a city renaming committee. It’s unclear what the schools’ exact
names will be and when the change will take place.
The middle schools were initially named after David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman, twomen who were leading advocates of eugenics, or the theory of improving a human population by controlled breeding to produce desirable heritable characteristics. The name changes were sparked by a student’s book report on Jordan, Stanford University’s first president, in the fall of 2015.
Tuesday’s board meeting was packed and about 70 speakers were given a minute each to state their opinions. About half of them urged the board to not name the school after Fred Yamamoto.
Although Yamamoto was a Japanese- American forced into an internment camp during World War II and was later killed in action while serving in the U. S. Army’s 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team, a number of Chinese- American residents in recent weeks have complained that his last name could be confused with that of Isoruku Yamamoto.
They say Isoruku Yamamoto, known as the architect of the Pearl Harbor bombing, was responsible for war crimes committed against the Chinese during World War II. An online petition opposing the name had roughly 1,350 supporters as of Wednesday night.
“The last name Yamamoto triggers painful feeling and painful memory,” Amanda Chi said.
Chi and others said the board would be applying a double standard if it named a school after Fred Yamamoto. That’s because Frederick Emmons Terman — Lewis Terman’s son and Silicon Valley pioneer after whom Terman Middle was later co-named — was taken out of the running by the board.
But others argued that if the board chose not to name the school after Fred Yamamoto, it would miss a teaching moment for students that people should be judged by their actions and not their last names. Fred Yamamoto was the top choice of the renaming committee.
Judy Mine said Yamamoto is a common American name and someone of Japanese ancestry should not automatically be associated with World War II horrors.
“Misinformed people make catastrophic associations between loyal Japanese and bad Japanese … which led to internment camps,” Mine said. “That bigotry should not be tolerated in our educational system.”
Two students read a statement from members of Fred Yamamoto’s family saying that naming a school after him would be a reminder to stay vigilant against forces that try to rip away freedoms.
“Fred’s name on a school would show that keeping hearts and minds open leads to positive change,” the statement reads.
Board President Ken Dauber, the only trustee who supported naming a school after Fred Yamamoto, floated the idea of sending the issue back to the renaming committee and adding more Hispanic and Asian-American repre- sentatives, but he failed to get enough support.
Roughly half of all Palo Alto Unified’s students are Asian-American (36 percent) or Hispanic (12 percent), but none of the 13 committee members are. Dauber said this lack of representation could be construed as a violation of board policy.
“If the names that were given were not inspiring, I could see going through this again,” board member Melissa Baten Caswell said. “I think there was an active effort to getmore ethnic diversity.”
Board Vice President Jennifer DiBrienza said the renaming issue has exposed “fissures” in the community, which she is calling on the school board and Palo Alto City Council to address. There have been allegations of racism in online comments and emails to the city among the city’s Asian-American community, as well as against the renaming committee and school board.
“We have a siloed community here, we’ve got a siloed city,” DiBrienza said. “No matter what gets decided here tonight, we need to talk to each other more … and understand each other’s perspective.”