Editor’s note: The following is a satirical article for The DisreGuardian, a series of articles published annually for The Guardian’s April Fool’s issue. Opinion will resume publishing normal content next week.
UC San Diego has a clear bias towards dead white people, the majority of whom are men, when it comes to naming its colleges and buildings. Given that UCSD is obviously a national trendsetter in infrastructure — including but not limited to housing crises, overpriced commodities, and sprawling mega parking lots — UCSD should remedy this current sentiment towards dead white males by naming their buildings after more progressive and contemporary corporate partners like Amazon and Lockheed Martin.
Corporate mega powers are far more progressive and justice-driven than the people whose names currently mark the buildings and colleges around UCSD. For example, when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights, it is painfully obvious that Amazon is a strong and committed ally, demonstrated through its actions during Pride Month. Amazon’s yearly short-term logo change to rainbow colors and delicately, strategically worded social media announcements set them aside as social activists. Now, let’s take a look at some of the actions of our universities’ chosen namesakes. Eleanor Roosevelt never dyed her skin seven different colors for Pride Month. Earl Warren never published a short, clearly ChatGPT-ed tweet announcing that he stands with the Black community during Black History Month. Warren and Roosevelt could never match the dedication of Google or Apple when it comes to political justice. All they did was limply fight for LGBTQ+ rights in court and legally end segregation, respectively.
Furthermore, one of the more practical arguments for renaming these buildings is that it is simply not relevant or useful today. Let’s keep in mind that these buildings are named after dead people, the majority of whom were born before the invention of toasters. One of the biggest advantages of naming buildings after UCSD’s closest partners would be the creation of cronyism for students during their hunt for employment. For example, students can get a leg up on others during their conversations with recruiters, technical interviewers, and LinkedIn connections with a casual mention of living in Facebook Hall while taking classes in the Zuckerberg Auditorium. This would undoubtedly allow students to curry favors with the Meta recruiter and, if pulled off correctly, might even make these recruiters blush.
Some might question how this advantage would apply to the whole school instead of just a small selection of STEM majors looking to go into the corporate world. What about those going to graduate school or perhaps even humanities majors? Well, this problem is easily solved with a quick reminder that there are no humanities majors at UCSD. The existence of arts majors at this university is just as fake as the moon landing or, as the writers at the DisreGuardian say, “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, arts majors have stupid dreams.” Second, even for non-corporate affiliated professions, being in the good graces of Google and Amazon would be preferable since they do have a lot of your data.
Critics (also known as haters) might point out that certain classes may have trouble finding a suitable place to hold lectures. For example, hosting SOCI 140F, Law and the Workplace, in Amazon Hall, or holding MAE 69, Ethics of Engineering in Lockheed Martin Auditorium might be problematic, but once again, this problem is entirely nonexistent because, according to CAPES, only 1% of students attend lectures in person and everyone else watches them through the podcast.
This naming switch would also heavily encourage diversity on our campus. This is because instead of just extremely rich white guys like Earl Warren, we are now honoring extremely rich non-white guys like Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, or Paul Mola, founder of Roswell Biotech (based here in San Diego!). By changing the skin color of our buildings’ namesakes, we have achieved a monumental turning point for UCSD’s diversity mission that will go down in the history books right above MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
In conclusion, the time has come for UCSD to reevaluate its approach to naming buildings on campus. By shifting away from the practice of honoring dead white politicians and embracing partnerships with corporate entities, UCSD can strengthen its bottom line, foster innovation, and better reflect the values of its diverse community — a bold step towards a brighter future for UCSD and higher education as a whole.
