Give credit to those who truly deserve it

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
[email protected]. Send general comments to
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