Several months ago, in a letter to the editor defending Northern Michigan University’s decision to remove Luther West’s name from the physical structure now known only as The Science Building, I issued...

The Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees made the right decision when it voted last month to remove Dr. Luther West’s name from the edifice formerly known as West Science—now denominated simply as the Science Building. This action communicates to the general public, and to the NMU community in particular, that the university considers the value of an inclusive, pluralistic society to be a fundamental and paramount one.

During the last 20 years of his life, I got to know my grandfather Luther West very well, and was even his guardian in his last incapacitated years. I also became aware of his reputation. All who knew him liked, admired and respected him.

Dr. Luther West — a former Northern Michigan University biology professor who openly supported the promotion of “conservative eugenic legislation and eugenic administration” in the 1920s — is a wholly “blameless” person. At least, that’s what Philip Niswonger seems to argue in his recent letter to the editor. But his letter to the editor is entirely unconvincing, as it solely consists of a series of nonsensical non sequiturs.

Luther West, the namesake of Northern Michigan University’s West Science building, located in the Academic Mall, is under scrutiny after university historian, Dr. Russell Magnaghi, uncovered a past in...