With the launch of UCL200, the university celebrates 200 years of ‘disruptive thinking’ through lighting displays, exhibitions, and musicals. What must not also be forgotten, however, is the institution’s role in developing eugenics, and its continued complicity in genocide.
The father of eugenics
In 1883, Francis Galton published Inquiries into Human Faculties and Development, in which he invented the term eugenics.
“[This book’s] intention is to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with “eugenic” questions.”
Two decades later in 1904, it was in the very walls of University College London, that the father of eugenics established the Eugenics Record Office.
In the office, a handful of academics conducted statistical research into heredity, which contributed to an overarching eugenicist theory of class, race, and otherwise, to determine the scientifically “ideal” human.
Upon stepping down as chair of the office, his successor, Karl Pearson, renamed it the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, making himself the first Galton Professor of Eugenics at UCL.
Galton’s legacy
Upon his death in 1911, Francis Galton left his estate to UCL. His funds were put forward to create a permanent Chair of Eugenics, filled first by Pearson. In 1913, he created the Department of Applied Statistics and Eugenics.
The department was housed in the North-West wing of the Wilkins Building after Sir Herbert Bartlett (after whom the architecture building is named) made an anonymous donation.
Needless to say, the legacy of the literal creation of eugenics, and UCL’s deep association with it, runs deep.
Eugenicist theories formed the basis of sterilisation programmes in the US which led to the forced sterilisation of the disabled, often disproportionately affecting people of colour, women, and the LGBT community.
Such policies were also implemented by the worst excesses of society, such as the Nazi regime.
Lesson not learnt?
Over the last several years, UCL has made attempts to acknowledge its past. In 2020, the University removed the names of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson from its lecture theatres and buildings.
In the “Eugenics Stairs” that they installed in the Student Centre last year, it is written that “UCL’s inquiry [into its involvement in eugenics] has prompted other universities to think about their role. And there are a lot of institutions that still need to accept responsibility.”
The University’s acknowledgement of its involvement in the creation of such a heinous practice is, of course, to be welcomed. However, questions will inevitably be raised about whether the lesson has truly been learnt.
Since the publication of the Eugenics Inquiry Response Group Report in 2021, UCL has evicted encampments protesting against the genocide in Gaza, invested in tech companies working with the Israeli police, and continue to fail to even mention the name of alumnus Dr Refaat Alareer who was killed in an Israeli Airstrike.
As the university celebrates its 200th birthday, questions of hypocrisy may potentially be inevitable.