Vermont
Judge: College chapel renamed over eugenics link can keep new title
A private liberal arts college in Vermont that changed the name of its chapel over ties to eugenics will not be ordered to restore the title, according to a ruling in a lawsuit against the school.
Middlebury College announced in 2021 that it had stripped John Mead’s name because of his “instigating role” in eugenics policies of the early 1900s, which “sought to isolate and prevent the procreation of so-called ‘delinquents, dependents, and defectives.’” The court ruled Oct. 3 that the college isn’t required to restore the name but the judge is allowing the case to proceed to a jury trial on damages on other claims, said former Gov. James Douglas, special administrator of Mead’s estate, on Wednesday.
Douglas had filed a breach of contract lawsuit against his alma mater in 2023, accusing the school of cancel culture behavior when it removed the Mead name from the building, which is now called Middlebury Chapel.
Mead, a physician and industrialist who graduated from Middlebury in 1864, served as Vermont governor from 1910 to 1912. The Mead Memorial Chapel’s name was unchanged for over 100 years, even after Mead’s death in 1920, the judge wrote.
“Governor Mead contributed most of the funds supporting the initial construction of the chapel, but he did not provide funds for its indefinite maintenance, and Middlebury has determined that the time has come to change the name,” Superior Court Judge Robert Mello wrote in the order. “In these circumstances, the court concludes that the reasonable duration of any contractual term as to the name of the chapel has been satisfied as a matter of law.”
Middlebury College said it’s pleased that the court has resolved the claims at the heart of the estate’s case in the college’s favor. The school’s “attorneys are evaluating the next steps to fully resolve the few remaining issues and move this case toward a close,” said spokesman Jon Reidel by email.
Douglas, who teaches part-time at Middlebury, said he is disappointed.
“Obviously the college could do the right thing at any point,” Douglas said. “The college should understand that they have disparaged a generous and loyal benefactor who loved Middlebury College.”
The name was removed after the state Legislature apologized in May 2021 to all residents and their families and descendants who were harmed by state-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices that led to sterilizations. Middlebury was not the first school to remove a name over support for such policies.
In 2019, the outgoing president of the University of Vermont apologized for the school’s involvement in eugenics research in the 1920s and 1930s that helped lead to sterilizations. The year before, the university decided to remove a former school president’s name from the library because of his support of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont and its leader, a university professor.
Mead and his wife gave $74,000 to the school in 1914 to create a new, prominent chapel on the highest point on campus, Middlebury officials said in 2021. Two years before that, Mead had strongly urged the Legislature to adopt policies and create legislation premised on eugenics theory, they said.
Douglas said Mead chose Mead Memorial Chapel as the name to honor his ancestors.
“So the whole basis for the decision is flawed,” he said.
The remaining issues to be resolved at trial are whether the transaction was a gift or a contract that Middlebury unfairly breached without good faith, and if so, what damages, if any, the estate is entitled to, the judge wrote.
Louisiana
Immigrants brought to U.S. as children ask judges to keep protections against deportation
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children were among close to 200 demonstrators outside a federal courthouse in New Orleans on Thursday as three appellate judges heard arguments over the Biden administration’s policy shielding them from deportation.
At stake in the long legal battle playing out at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the U.S., even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status and they could eventually be deported.
“I live here. I work here. I own a home here,” said Marea Rocha Carrillo, 37. She traveled from her home in New York to join the demonstration. She said she was brought to the U.S. at age 3 when family members immigrated from Mexico, where she was born. She could not get a teaching certificate until the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allowed her to build a career in education.
Opponents of DACA weren’t in evidence among the demonstrators. But opponents, chiefly Texas and eight other Republican-dominated states, have said in court arguments and legal briefs that they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally.
The panel hearing arguments won’t rule immediately. Whatever they decide, the case will almost certainly wind up at the Supreme Court.
Former President Barack Obama first put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place in 2012, citing inaction by Congress on legislation aimed at giving those brought to the U.S. as youngsters a path to legal status and citizenship. Years of litigation followed. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of winning court approval.
But in September 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch had overstepped its authority. Hanen barred the government from approving new applications, but left it intact for existing recipients, known as “Dreamers,” during appeals.
Defenders of the policy argue that Congress has given the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security authority to set immigration policy, and that the states challenging the program have no basis to sue.
“They cannot identify any harms flowing from DACA,” Nina Perales, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said at a news conference this week.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an emailed interview request. The other states challenging DACA are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.
Among those states’ allies in court briefs is the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Congress has repeatedly refused to legalize DACA recipients, and no administration can take that step in its place,” the group’s executive director, Dale L. Wilcox, said in a statement this year.
The panel hearing the case consists of judges Jerry Smith, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen Higginson, nominated by Obama.
Judge: College chapel renamed over eugenics link can keep new title
A private liberal arts college in Vermont that changed the name of its chapel over ties to eugenics will not be ordered to restore the title, according to a ruling in a lawsuit against the school.
Middlebury College announced in 2021 that it had stripped John Mead’s name because of his “instigating role” in eugenics policies of the early 1900s, which “sought to isolate and prevent the procreation of so-called ‘delinquents, dependents, and defectives.’” The court ruled Oct. 3 that the college isn’t required to restore the name but the judge is allowing the case to proceed to a jury trial on damages on other claims, said former Gov. James Douglas, special administrator of Mead’s estate, on Wednesday.
Douglas had filed a breach of contract lawsuit against his alma mater in 2023, accusing the school of cancel culture behavior when it removed the Mead name from the building, which is now called Middlebury Chapel.
Mead, a physician and industrialist who graduated from Middlebury in 1864, served as Vermont governor from 1910 to 1912. The Mead Memorial Chapel’s name was unchanged for over 100 years, even after Mead’s death in 1920, the judge wrote.
“Governor Mead contributed most of the funds supporting the initial construction of the chapel, but he did not provide funds for its indefinite maintenance, and Middlebury has determined that the time has come to change the name,” Superior Court Judge Robert Mello wrote in the order. “In these circumstances, the court concludes that the reasonable duration of any contractual term as to the name of the chapel has been satisfied as a matter of law.”
Middlebury College said it’s pleased that the court has resolved the claims at the heart of the estate’s case in the college’s favor. The school’s “attorneys are evaluating the next steps to fully resolve the few remaining issues and move this case toward a close,” said spokesman Jon Reidel by email.
Douglas, who teaches part-time at Middlebury, said he is disappointed.
“Obviously the college could do the right thing at any point,” Douglas said. “The college should understand that they have disparaged a generous and loyal benefactor who loved Middlebury College.”
The name was removed after the state Legislature apologized in May 2021 to all residents and their families and descendants who were harmed by state-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices that led to sterilizations. Middlebury was not the first school to remove a name over support for such policies.
In 2019, the outgoing president of the University of Vermont apologized for the school’s involvement in eugenics research in the 1920s and 1930s that helped lead to sterilizations. The year before, the university decided to remove a former school president’s name from the library because of his support of the Eugenics Survey of Vermont and its leader, a university professor.
Mead and his wife gave $74,000 to the school in 1914 to create a new, prominent chapel on the highest point on campus, Middlebury officials said in 2021. Two years before that, Mead had strongly urged the Legislature to adopt policies and create legislation premised on eugenics theory, they said.
Douglas said Mead chose Mead Memorial Chapel as the name to honor his ancestors.
“So the whole basis for the decision is flawed,” he said.
The remaining issues to be resolved at trial are whether the transaction was a gift or a contract that Middlebury unfairly breached without good faith, and if so, what damages, if any, the estate is entitled to, the judge wrote.
Louisiana
Immigrants brought to U.S. as children ask judges to keep protections against deportation
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children were among close to 200 demonstrators outside a federal courthouse in New Orleans on Thursday as three appellate judges heard arguments over the Biden administration’s policy shielding them from deportation.
At stake in the long legal battle playing out at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the future of about 535,000 people who have long-established lives in the U.S., even though they don’t hold citizenship or legal residency status and they could eventually be deported.
“I live here. I work here. I own a home here,” said Marea Rocha Carrillo, 37. She traveled from her home in New York to join the demonstration. She said she was brought to the U.S. at age 3 when family members immigrated from Mexico, where she was born. She could not get a teaching certificate until the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allowed her to build a career in education.
Opponents of DACA weren’t in evidence among the demonstrators. But opponents, chiefly Texas and eight other Republican-dominated states, have said in court arguments and legal briefs that they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally.
The panel hearing arguments won’t rule immediately. Whatever they decide, the case will almost certainly wind up at the Supreme Court.
Former President Barack Obama first put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in place in 2012, citing inaction by Congress on legislation aimed at giving those brought to the U.S. as youngsters a path to legal status and citizenship. Years of litigation followed. President Joe Biden renewed the program in hopes of winning court approval.
But in September 2023, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Houston said the executive branch had overstepped its authority. Hanen barred the government from approving new applications, but left it intact for existing recipients, known as “Dreamers,” during appeals.
Defenders of the policy argue that Congress has given the executive branch’s Department of Homeland Security authority to set immigration policy, and that the states challenging the program have no basis to sue.
“They cannot identify any harms flowing from DACA,” Nina Perales, vice president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said at a news conference this week.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an emailed interview request. The other states challenging DACA are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.
Among those states’ allies in court briefs is the Immigration Reform Law Institute. “Congress has repeatedly refused to legalize DACA recipients, and no administration can take that step in its place,” the group’s executive director, Dale L. Wilcox, said in a statement this year.
The panel hearing the case consists of judges Jerry Smith, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen Higginson, nominated by Obama.
