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The Scandal of Cal: Land Grabs, White Supremacy, and Miseducation at UC Berkeley
The incendiary story of conquest, racism, warfare, and historical amnesia at one of the world’s most celebrated and ostensibly enlightened public universities. " This is a land acknowledgment." ― Ruth Wilson Gilmore , author of Abolition Essays towards Liberation " The Scandal of Cal is a template for scrutinizing other land-grant universities … This is a beautifully written and heartbreaking narrative." ― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz , author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States The University of California, Berkeley―widely known as "Cal"―is admired worldwide as a bastion of innovation and a hub for progressive thought. Far less known are the university’s roots in plunder, warfare, and the promotion of white supremacy. As Tony Platt shows in The Scandal of Cal , these original sins sit at the center of UC Berkeley’s history. Platt looks unflinchingly at the university’s desecration of graves and large-scale hoarding of Indigenous remains. He tracks its role in developing the racist pseudoscience of eugenics in the early twentieth century. He sheds light on the school’s complicity with the military-industrial complex and its incubation of unprecedented violence through the Manhattan Project. And he underscores its deliberate and continued evasions about its own wrongdoings, which echo in the institution’s decision-making up to the present day. This book, above all, illuminates Cal’s culpability in some of the cruelest chapters of US history and sounds a clarion call for the university to undertake a thorough and earnest reckoning with its past. It is required reading for Cal alumni, students, faculty, and staff, and for anyone concerned with the impact of higher education in the United States and beyond.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
320 pages, Hardcover
Published August 29, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 21, 2023
There is a lot of grave-robbing in the history of UC Berkeley, well into the twentieth century. The university’s poor track record with indigenous people is the major focus of The Scandal of Cal, but it is not the only focus. I would recommend this to anyone who has been affiliated with Cal or has lived in the East Bay; at the least, you will learn a lot about the names that have dotted places on campus and nearby, such as Wheeler, Hearst, Kroeber, Moses, Gilman, LeConte, etc.
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November 19, 2023I'm sure this topic is important, and I'd like to know these things about my alma mater, but this was the most boring thing that I have read in a very long time.
I couldn't get into it. I didn't finish it. I have no idea about the contents.
Life is too short for boring books.
I couldn't get into it. I didn't finish it. I have no idea about the contents.
Life is too short for boring books.
September 3, 2024
Excellent research and pungent opinions from a former Cal professor about UC Berkeley’s history, especially the anthropology department. The author, a refugee from 1960s activist culture, fills this book with little known facts about the movers and shakers who created UC Berkeley.
Most of those facts are negative. For example, John Le Conte, President of the university in the 1870s, was a former Confederate from a slave-owning family who remained an unreconstructed racist.
Benjamin Ida Wheeler, President of the University in the early part of the 20th century, advocated eugenics to prevent the “unfit” from taking over the world.
The university benefited from the Morrill Land Grant Act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, taking possession of 150,000 acres of “unpeopled public domain land“ which of course was still home to many Native Americans.
There was a Native American village along Strawberry Creek near the football stadium. Artifacts recovered from the site confirmed continuous use for perhaps thousands of years, but the university described it publicly as just “temporary campgrounds.”
With the backing of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the University amassed a huge collection of native American remains from burial sites in California. Although the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act became federal law in 1990, the university continues to hold thousands of skeletal remains.
The chief fault I find with this narrative is that the author consistently measures the conduct of people in the past using today’s standards as the yardstick. There is little balanced discussion of actions taken in light of the standards applicable at the time. Tony Platt often portrays figures in two dimensions as mustache-twirling villains.
There is, however, a somewhat balanced discussion of legendary anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. “Kroeber‘s reputation among tribes today is mixed. Many respect him for his advocacy, albeit belated, of native land rights.”
Platt summarizes the criticisms of Kroeber as follows:
He failed in his responsibility to speak out publicly about the Native American genocide that followed the Gold Rush.
He did not explore the extent to which Native Americans’ recollections of pre-contact life was “remediated by their direct or indirect knowledge of the catastrophe that swept through their tribes in the second half of the 19th century.”
Kroeber was so preoccupied with pre-contact cultures that he never introduced us to the living people
He chaired a department that “plundered Native grave sites and made eugenic anthropometry a respectable component of its search and curriculum.”
At the end of the book, Professor Platt includes an interesting discussion of how 5 buildings on campus came to be “denamed” in recent years.
Although his far-left liberalism frequently scorches the page, the saving grace is that Platt wants the University to be better; to do a better job of living up to its brand as one of the world’s great public universities dedicated to improving the world. He wants Cal to fulfill its reputation as an agent of social change and a public trust. So do I.
Most of those facts are negative. For example, John Le Conte, President of the university in the 1870s, was a former Confederate from a slave-owning family who remained an unreconstructed racist.
Benjamin Ida Wheeler, President of the University in the early part of the 20th century, advocated eugenics to prevent the “unfit” from taking over the world.
The university benefited from the Morrill Land Grant Act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, taking possession of 150,000 acres of “unpeopled public domain land“ which of course was still home to many Native Americans.
There was a Native American village along Strawberry Creek near the football stadium. Artifacts recovered from the site confirmed continuous use for perhaps thousands of years, but the university described it publicly as just “temporary campgrounds.”
With the backing of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the University amassed a huge collection of native American remains from burial sites in California. Although the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act became federal law in 1990, the university continues to hold thousands of skeletal remains.
The chief fault I find with this narrative is that the author consistently measures the conduct of people in the past using today’s standards as the yardstick. There is little balanced discussion of actions taken in light of the standards applicable at the time. Tony Platt often portrays figures in two dimensions as mustache-twirling villains.
There is, however, a somewhat balanced discussion of legendary anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. “Kroeber‘s reputation among tribes today is mixed. Many respect him for his advocacy, albeit belated, of native land rights.”
Platt summarizes the criticisms of Kroeber as follows:
He failed in his responsibility to speak out publicly about the Native American genocide that followed the Gold Rush.
He did not explore the extent to which Native Americans’ recollections of pre-contact life was “remediated by their direct or indirect knowledge of the catastrophe that swept through their tribes in the second half of the 19th century.”
Kroeber was so preoccupied with pre-contact cultures that he never introduced us to the living people
He chaired a department that “plundered Native grave sites and made eugenic anthropometry a respectable component of its search and curriculum.”
At the end of the book, Professor Platt includes an interesting discussion of how 5 buildings on campus came to be “denamed” in recent years.
Although his far-left liberalism frequently scorches the page, the saving grace is that Platt wants the University to be better; to do a better job of living up to its brand as one of the world’s great public universities dedicated to improving the world. He wants Cal to fulfill its reputation as an agent of social change and a public trust. So do I.
December 6, 2023
Working on campus, I have seen a number of recent post-2020 changes to the rhetoric and thinking about Cal and it's history, it has been refreshing (well well overdue.) There have been sporadically intentional efforts by academics, workers and students to reframe the history of UC Berkeley in a more honest context. This book outlines, in detail, the many missteps and choices taken in establishing the campus as a vanguard of research and in service of that goal, obfuscation of certain inalienable truths about the land grant university.
This book shines a light on many hypocrisies of the enterprise, built atop and benefitting immensely from the legacy of the Ohlone that stewarded the area initially, and CONTINUE to inhabit the region. Probably should really be required reading for incoming students, as it allows a more full understanding and reconciliation with the names that are littered all over campus as honoraria to a hallowed past of greatness. Thirty years ago I was a freshman in Putnam Hall, Unit One, I lived in that space for one full year without any knowledge (or care really) of who Putnam was... As it turns out, Putnam was early physical anthropologist who made his bones quite literally, grave robbing indigenous lands in service of Phoebe Hearst's mandate to collect widely and voraciously human specimens to anoint the new campus with notable collections of osteological artifacts (to hell with how we get 'em).
And that Shellmound Bay Street Emeryville mall? that's one of the grave robbing spots! If you ever want to read the "provided" history of the Shellmound that existed there, it's placed in the hallways next to the bathrooms on the 2nd floor of that mall (ugh!). Again, CA has lots of work to do to reconcile it's ugly past with indigenous communities then and now in the present.
The book is a solid read, and should be adopted as a text for incoming freshman to consider their obligation to the space they will use in the course of their schooling, and so they do not go through their four years as blindly as I did when I was a student!
Still love this place, and the people who try to make it a bit better and more honest each day, like the author did in this text.
"Go Bears?!"
This book shines a light on many hypocrisies of the enterprise, built atop and benefitting immensely from the legacy of the Ohlone that stewarded the area initially, and CONTINUE to inhabit the region. Probably should really be required reading for incoming students, as it allows a more full understanding and reconciliation with the names that are littered all over campus as honoraria to a hallowed past of greatness. Thirty years ago I was a freshman in Putnam Hall, Unit One, I lived in that space for one full year without any knowledge (or care really) of who Putnam was... As it turns out, Putnam was early physical anthropologist who made his bones quite literally, grave robbing indigenous lands in service of Phoebe Hearst's mandate to collect widely and voraciously human specimens to anoint the new campus with notable collections of osteological artifacts (to hell with how we get 'em).
And that Shellmound Bay Street Emeryville mall? that's one of the grave robbing spots! If you ever want to read the "provided" history of the Shellmound that existed there, it's placed in the hallways next to the bathrooms on the 2nd floor of that mall (ugh!). Again, CA has lots of work to do to reconcile it's ugly past with indigenous communities then and now in the present.
The book is a solid read, and should be adopted as a text for incoming freshman to consider their obligation to the space they will use in the course of their schooling, and so they do not go through their four years as blindly as I did when I was a student!
Still love this place, and the people who try to make it a bit better and more honest each day, like the author did in this text.
"Go Bears?!"
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December 16, 2023Despite the system glitch saying I have, I haven't read this book and don't intend to, hence the lack of a rating. I just wanted to be sure, in case Mr. Platt neglects to mention it, that readers are aware that he was let go by Cal in the 1970s. Based on my personal experience with him, I think there's very little likelihood that he would be a reliable narrator; I'm not going to spend the time fact-checking the book to find out. I took one of the last courses he was allowed to teach and was appalled by the man's utter refusal - or inability - to consider or respect any point of view other than his own. This was Berkeley fergawdsake; it's not as if he had a classroom full of Young Republicans taking issue with everything he said, but he would brook no questioning of, or disagreement with, his rigid ideology. Almost everyone in the class, except for his mindless acolytes, regretted taking it.
January 27, 2024
Interesting book with lots of facts and strongly-held opinions. I'm more willing to tolerate, eg, atomic research than the author is, but disagreement on stuff like that isn't what drove my low rating.
One factor is that the list of offenses is exhaustive to the point of being exhausting. Perhaps it was important to document all of them in one place, or not to rank one act above or below another, but it got numbing to read of all the exhumations. Same for other historical crimes.
More importantly, Platt's just really angry. Some cause for that, and he's entitled to the emotion, but it interferes with his persuading.
I'm glad I read it but I didn't enjoy it.
One factor is that the list of offenses is exhaustive to the point of being exhausting. Perhaps it was important to document all of them in one place, or not to rank one act above or below another, but it got numbing to read of all the exhumations. Same for other historical crimes.
More importantly, Platt's just really angry. Some cause for that, and he's entitled to the emotion, but it interferes with his persuading.
I'm glad I read it but I didn't enjoy it.
September 25, 2023
Really important. If you already know about these uniquely California and UC Berkeley issues, the genocide, grave robbing, hoarding of ancestors, and eugenics, and you don’t want to slog through the details, just read the last chapter, Reckoning.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews