An Ontario court has granted Western University permission to remove the name of an emeritus history professor from six academic awards funded by his estate after criticism that he espoused radical and racist views.
Kenneth Hilborn taught history and international relations at the university in London, Ontario, from 1961 to 1997. After his death in 2013 at age 79, Hilborn’s estate bequeathed $1 million to Western, including $750,000 in the history department for four undergraduate and two graduate awards. which have been distributed since 2016.
In 2019, scholars began calling for the school to intervene, linking the grants to universities’ legitimization of far-right beliefs.
“He was openly opposed to the equality of human beings,” said Will Langford, who teaches history at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Langford wrote an essay in 2020 in which he called Hilborn a “racist” and criticized Western for not acknowledging Hilborn’s views when awarding the scholarships.
A battle of essays
Langford, who learned of Western’s plans to remove Hilborn’s name from scholarships during a CBC News phone call, called the development “good news.”
Students are shown participating in orientation events Tuesday at Western, a school where Hilborn taught from 1961 to 1997. (Colin Butler/CBC News)
“I think the department is taking advantage of the opportunity in front of them to engage with that history, the history of their own department, their own university, and I hope they’re teaching about scholarship in their courses.
“I also hope for some kind of recognition, perhaps on the department’s website, so that anyone in the public who wants to learn more can easily find it.”
Hilborn’s name is attached to six scholarships at the university, bequeathed by his estate. (University of the West)
Francine McKenzie, an assistant professor at Western who also teaches history and international relations, responded to Langford’s 2020 essay with one of her own that same year titled “Western’s History Department and the Hilborn Student Awards” .
“The Hilborn Awards do good, now and forever,” he wrote. “While the Hilborn Awards are on a much more modest scale than the Rhodes Fellowships, the comparison is useful: The Rhodes Trust does not endorse the views of Cecil Rhodes; the history department does not endorse the views of Ken Hilborn.”
In the essay, he noted that Western’s history department “discussed the implications of creating student awards through his legacy and decided that the awards should remain.”
Three years later, Western University quietly did a U-turn, petitioning an Ontario court this year to remove Hilborn’s name from the awards.
Hilborn’s work “hurt,” the group says
A spokesperson for Western University said they cannot comment while the matter is still before the courts.
But newly discovered court documents from the university, in its request to the Office of the Guardian and Trustee to remove Hilborn’s name from the scholarships, offer a glimpse of what might have caused Western to change its mind.
Students returned to Western on Tuesday for the 2022-23 academic year. (Colin Butler/CBC News)
According to the documents, Western’s history department created a research group to consider “whether the criticism leveled at Hilborn had merit.”
The research group believed that Hilborn’s academic work “harmed” and caused “epistemic violence by suppressing, dismissing and trivializing oppressed, vulnerable or discriminated against”.
The court documents also state that Hilborn’s work “reinforced the arguments of white supremacy, emphasized the safety of whites, never blacks, and affirmed the goodness and superiority of whites explicitly.”
The history department’s research group recommended removing Hilborn’s name from the scholarships, court documents state, because if the school did not, Western “would be seen as tacitly accepting and endorsing his views “, which the researchers noted “goes against Western University’s goals.” and values”.
Hilborn appeared to have died without living relatives. Court documents in the case do not mention his family, except for his mother and father, who were dead by 2013. Hilborn’s obituary, which still exists on Western University’s website, does not mention any children or friends , and the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee is usually called upon to make legal decisions for estates when there is no one else to do so.
Court documents do not say how Western would change the name of the scholarships or when that might happen.
“As the matter remains before the court, it would be inappropriate to comment at this time,” Jordan Diacur, the Hamilton lawyer representing Western in the legal case, wrote to CBC News on Friday.
Marcia Steyaert, the school’s executive director of editorial strategy and media relations, did not return a request for comment by press time.