Multiple CSU San Marcos' Citizen Councilmembers Resign Over Building Name Removal

By Jakob McWhinney, the Voice of San Diego

February 17, 2023

Four members of CSU San Marcos’ 40-person University Council have resigned in response to the decision to remove former state Sen. Bill Craven’s name from the university’s first building.

Craven, whose years of advocacy played an instrumental role in the founding of the university, angered many during his time in office with demeaning remarks about Latino immigrants. He passed away in 1999.

In 2021, San Marcos’ President Ellen Neufeldt created a task force to investigate Craven’s legacy and to determine whether his name should be removed. In December, the task force released a report recommending Craven’s name come down. While the recommendation wasn’t unanimous, they wrote that “the overwhelming majority of Taskforce members endorsed the removal.”

Key factors in the decision included Craven’s support of identification cards for migrants and the controversial Proposition 187 – which passed but was never implemented. Prop. 187 would have prohibited immigrants who lack permanent legal status from accessing non-emergency public health care, K-12 education and public higher education.

Craven also referred to undocumented immigrants as the “lower scale of our humanity,” during a 1993 Senate hearing – another incident that influenced the task force’s decision. Craven’s lack of apology for the statement also played a critical role in the decision of multiple members.

“(Craven) explained that the comment was taken out of context, and the task force reviewed the video of the hearing and heard the comment in context,” the task force wrote. “The majority of task force members were not satisfied with [Craven’s] explanation and believe his failure to meet with the faculty and staff and acknowledge the pain his comments cause the Latinx community demonstrates behavior counter to the values of CSUSM.”

In late January, the CSU board of trustees sided with the task force, clearing the way for the name change.

Xuan Santos, an associate professor at CSU San Marcos told The Coast News that the decision came “after three decades of struggle to change the name, so it’s a major victory as far as looking at racial justice across the United States.”

But the name change also triggered the resignation of multiple members of the college’s University Council, an advisory group made up of community members, who cited their disagreement with the decision and their frustration that they had not been consulted.

John Raymond, who served as director emeritus of the CSUSM Foundation and sat on the council for 34 years, was one of the councilmembers who resigned.

“I was working on an initiative to address and fund an issue about which I care about deeply. It is food and/or shelter security for all CSUSM students. It is hereby terminated,” he wrote in a letter to Neufeldt.

In a fiery resignation letter, Kenneth Lounsberry, a former friend of Craven, wrote the decision to remove his name from the building was “staggering,” and that the task force had made no attempt to prove its “salacious charges.” Lounsberry has served on the University Council, since the university was founded 40 years ago.

“History will not deal kindly with this chapter of University leadership,” Lounsberry wrote. “The eradication of the senator’s name is a miscarriage of justice. He was neither a racist nor a white supremacist and years from now truly objective scholarship will correct the record. In the meantime, I will recall the meaningful years of the Council and leave you to your diminished role.”

In a statement, CSUSM spokesperson Margaret Chantung wrote that the university is grateful for the resigning members’ years of service. She also noted that the council is an advisory group, rather than a governing board or a decision-making group.

“It’s important to understand that the full membership of the university council did not have a singular opinion on the name of Craven Hall, and the viewpoints of the resigning members do not represent the viewpoints of the entire group,” Chantung wrote. “We look forward to the ongoing work of university council in partnership with President Neufeldt, the faculty, staff and students of CSUSM.”

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