A brave man. Trustees are not supposed to disagree with Lillis in public. I’m sure there will be consequences. I hope there may be action.
First he pointed out to Duck AD Rob Mullens that it’s the football players – mostly black – whose unpaid labor earns 75% of the AD budget and supports Mullens and the “non-revenue” sports, which are mostly white. So Black Lives should Matter to Mullens, if he wants to keep getting paid. Video here.
Then, in thoughtful and moving remarks, he called for the Board to vote – immediately – to dename Deady Hall, here:
At one point Colas noted that Deady had later changed his racist views – and argued that Deady himself might recognize, were he alive today, the pain and suffering he had caused so many blacks, and agree that his name should not be in the face of them now.
Daily Emerald reporter Duncan Baumgarten has the story here:
Matthew Deady, after whom the university’s first building is named, was appointed to the position of President of the UO Board of Regents in 1873. He was a pro-slavery delegate to the Oregon constitutional convention, and Colas read quotes from Deady detailing his racism, including saying that Black people are just as much property as “horses, cattle and land.”
“I cannot accept a person who would see me and believe that I am as good as a horse, cattle or a piece of land. That wrecks me inside,” Colas said Thursday.
Because of Oregon’s public meeting laws that require advanced notice, the board couldn’t debate or vote on renaming the building during Thursday’s meeting.
“We will visit about this and see what we want to do here,” Board Chair Chuck Lillis said.
Actually, the Board has broken the intent of Oregon’s public meetings law at least three times under Chuck Lillis and Angela Wilhelms leadership to take action without advance notice or in secret. Once when they tried to ram the delegation of authority legislation through without even letting the board see it until the morning of the vote – this attempt was stymied when RG reporter Diane Dietz and I saw Chuck Triplett putting it on their desks during a coffee break, took some quick photos, and the faculty raised hell. Then again when they gave Mike Gottredson a $940K buyout without showing the contract before the meeting, and again when Wilhelms kicked Dietz and me out of a secret “training session” at the Eugene Hilton, where the board decided how to subsidize the IAAF Track and Field Championships.
More from the Emerald:
The board voted to change the name of Dunn Hall, named after a KKK member who was a classics professor at the UO, to Unthank Hall, in 2017. The hall is now named after DeNorval Unthank Jr., the first Black student to graduate from the UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.
But UO President Michael Schill decided to not rename Deady Hall that same year. In the course of that decision, the board of trustees compiled a report on the subject.
At the time Pres Schill promised to at least put up an interpretive area in Deady, explaining his complicated racist history. It never happened. I assume VPEI Alex-Assensoh is still revising the org chart for the committee, and scheduling some more Jeffersonian Dinners at Marche to decide on the wording.
And the Duck Athletes are on the same radio station as avowed racists Chris Plant, Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Don Imus.
All racist hate promoters to the core.
Why is UO so closely associated with Racist Radio???
How much money, generated by the sweat and labor of black athletes, then being funneled into racist.
Is there no one in UO Admin who sees this stuff???
And Mullens makes how much? And the black athletes that generate that wealth make how much? And when was slavery abolished in this country?
If the Commandant of the Marine Corps can politely ask his troops to take down the Confederate flag of treason and go back to getting tattoos of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, surely our Board of Trustees can rename a building.
.
https://mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/CMC-Letter-R1.pdf
Considering you never served in the Marines Or the military I wouldn’t compare the 2. That’s a world you’ve never stepped foot in or understand how things work
The situation is actually worse than Anonymous describes.
KUGN is officially “THE RADIO HOME OF THE OREGON DUCKS” (cf its website: https://www.kugn.com/). It highlights this in all its promotions.
It is also the home of racist hate-filled Trump-worshiping talk-show hosts who have spent this past week relentlessly attacking those protesting police brutality and systemic racism. This week, their featured voice Michael Savage called protesters “punks” who should be “put down” (i.e. killed) “like the feral dogs they are”. For years he attacked President Obama for wanting to “destroy America” by admitting “waves of infected Africans and Haitians” as refugees. (His hatred does not end with African-Americans. For example, he has called Bernie Sanders a “weasel Jew” who “like many Jews hates white (sic) people”.)
Welcome to “The Home of the Oregon Ducks”.
In 2003 students and others protested KUGN’s proclaiming itself the “Home of the Oregon Ducks” when it became a hate-radio station. They were told that the Athletic Dept was being paid a substantial sum for the use of the U of O name. I suggest the money from KUGN be used to create a George Floyd Scholarship at the U of O–as all schools were urged to do at yesterday’s memorial service.
In fairness, this is more a result of massive conglomeration of media, including radio. If you travel through much of the flyover states, all you hear are the same talk hosts, the same ones on KUGN. The AD might not of had any place else to go, outside of establishing their own network.
Prior to FCC relaxing the rules regarding sole ownership of various media outlets, you could find a lot more local radio. Once that all changed, networks took over what single broadcasters produced, thereby creating a homogenized product. That’s why you’re hearing the same five voices, and their network owners, dominating the frequencies.
What’s going to be interesting is that major advertisers are cancelling their contracts. They know this is a Depression, and it makes no sense to flack products few can buy. It might break the network control of radio..,
Stop apologizing and making such lame, tone-deaf excuses.
Maybe they had no place else to air the Duck games???
(All young people roll eyebrows and think WTF)
You are embarrassing yourself.
Oh wait, don’t we have KWAX (pronounced quacks!) as an alternative to RACIST RADIO.
Why not KWAX??
Too obv?
Well, see, the problem is far bigger than what you seem to understand. Currently, we have almost NO public ownership of radio frequencies. FCC oversight has been weakened for over three decades, resulting in what you’re hearing. Why aren’t you asking why these voices dominate radio? What happened to local radio? You’re failing to see the far bigger, systemic problem of media control.
Besides, I highly doubt you’ll find advertisers who’d want to give up KGUN and its network affiliation. KWAX is non-commercial. Unless you’re willing to bankroll production costs, how do you propose broadcasting games?
Get educated. KWAX is a totally listener funded station that is not at all financially supported by UO. It’s function is to air classical music, period.
What about KWVA 88.1, the campus station?
I am aware of why KUGN is the station it is now. I suppose if Al Jazeera or Russian TV were the only options they would be the “voice of the ducks” instead.Two points: [1] the last time this was raised, the athletic department said KUGN paid an EXTRA fee to call itself the “voice of the ducks” above and beyond just broadcasting their games. This could stop. [2] it was to address the problem of whether there’s any alternative that I am suggesting the university devote money from KUGN to scholarships.
The demise of local radio has been a focus of protest, it was in 2003. So now, if the only media venues are right wing hate radio stations, I repeat again: let’s devote the revenue to useful purposes. Especially to counter the racism they voice for hours every day.
I believe in 2003 KUGN paid an additional $1 million for the right to call itself “the voice of the ducks”. Maybe U of O Matters could get the current contract because I suspect that fee has gone up substantially in the last 17 years.
3:28:30 Chair conflates NAACP with NCAA: behold, the NCAACP!
I’m surprised Lillis didn’t mangle the AARP in there somehow too. But wait – you actually listened to him? Did he endorse Ben Carson again?
Channeled him a bit…which is why I couldn’t listen to him that much.