The first time I heard that UCLA was naming its brand new, world-class hospital after former President Ronald Reagan, I thought it was a joke. Like if someone told you they were establishing the “George W. Bush Center for Not Bombing Land” or the “William Jefferson Clinton Fellowship for Keeping it in Your Pants.”
Ironic. Laughable. And certainly not plausible.
But unfortunately, the politics of name-bequeathing is a numbers game, and the $150 million donation made by people who thought Reagan’s moniker deserved an appropriately ironic placement won over common sense.
To name a university hospital after a man whose governorship and presidency were filled with an utter disdain for public health shows a lack of judgment, illustrating a problem with the system by which UCLA accepts donations and renames its buildings and programs.
The first case of AIDS was diagnosed in 1981, but Ronald Reagan didn’t seem to care.
He deliberately ignored the growing AIDS epidemic, failing to address it publicly until 1987. That was six years into the crisis and over 20,000 Americans had already died, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Reagan’s own surgeon general admitted that the president’s administration had taken the stance that, through AIDS, homosexuals and intravenous drug users were “only getting what they justly deserved.”
Reagan’s moral agenda usurped his responsibility to public health, and his reluctance to mobilize and address AIDS as a public health issue cost tens of thousands of lives.
I can only imagine what those first AIDS victims would have thought, as they died painful and preventable deaths in the beds of the UCLA Medical Center, if only they’d known that someday that very center would come to take on the moniker of the man who was responsible for the utter lack of research and treatment that could have saved them.
But AIDS patients aren’t the only ones to be shafted by Reagan.
Reagan’s track record on health care was shameful, but even more shameful has been our university’s willingness to whitewash history by naming our prestigious medical center after a man who did so little to further public health in this country.
I don’t mind that the Broad family coughed up $20 million for the new art center. Or that David Geffen feels the need to plaster his name on everything in Westwood like a dog in a fire-hydrant warehouse.
But I’d like to see UCLA honoring more of its own.
UCLA has six professors and four alumni who have won Noble Prizes in recent years. Yet only two of them have buildings named after them (Bunche and Boyer halls). Surely some of these people deserve recognition.
University officials have made it no secret that they’re hoping to score big donors to name many of the unnamed and attractive buildings on campus – including the newly renovated Humanities Building, now that the name of renowned UCLA physicist Professor Edgar Lee Kinsey has been transferred to a “pavilion,” which consists of a measly pair of lecture halls adjacent to Knudsen Hall.
I’d hate to see the names of our notable faculty and alumni relegated to parking structures and memorial urinals in order to keep UCLA’s more prestigious buildings available for those who can pay up.
UCLA should strive to find a balance between receiving the financial benefits of philanthropy and honoring our rich legacy. We should consider more carefully whom we name buildings after, and whether we should really be accepting donations from special interest groups altogether.
Regardless, I’m eagerly awaiting the establishment of the soon-to-be-endowed Mel Gibson Chair in Jewish Studies, the Kenneth Lay School of Business and the Mark Foley High School Outreach Program.
To purchase an expensive chunk of UCLA, e-mail Levine at jlevine@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.