The recent the Tab article, "‘IU must stop immortalizing Jordan’: Notes found in Ballantine Hall call to rename the biology building," highlighted the new movement that has been going around under the hashtags #RenameJordan and #DecolonizeIU. The unknown individual has been posting numerous facts about former IU President David Starr Jordan to urge students and staffs to rename Jordan Hall and Jordan Ave. The unknown individual argued that keeping David Jordan's name is equivalent to immortalizing his unethical views and studies.

The motive behind the #RenameJordan movement may sound positive, however, the movement itself reflects America's long forgotten societal disease called stagnation. Stagnation halts innovation and change that the society experiences by constantly reminding the individuals of its good glorious past and forcing them to think in a closed-mindset. Due to this closed, and outdated mindset, the society becomes unable to intake and process the new information that is being constantly produced by others around the world. Thus, instead of becoming the understanding and innovative society, the society becomes violent and disorganized, making it impossible to become productive. And that is where our society is headed, we are becoming a disorganized, unproductive, lag behind society.

Because of stagnation, if something seems out of the norm, we tend to label those things bad, weird or inappropriate. If we cannot understand something, instead of embracing them, we label it wrong or it is out of context. It is a mentality that has led our community and our country to stagnate in development and just thirst for what was great in the past. Thus, instead of looking forward, we are looking back into the past, like how the #RenameJordan movement is trying to do.

The Eugenic studies and works done by David Starr Jordan was controversial. And Eugenics studies has led to Nazi ethnic cleansing which has killed many innocent lives. However, is it really worth the time and energy to revoke Jordan's name around IU's campus? Not really. Here is why:

If we look at his work in today's context, based on what has happened since his works were published, he is an evil, sick man who supported horrible program called eugenics. However, in the context of his time, eugenics was another scientific study that was part of progressive movement. I would say it was equivalent to today's Stem Cell research. Whether it was a eugenics program 100 years ago or the stem cell research of today, both share one thing: it focuses on improving human condition through science.

No, I am not trying to rationalize the eugenics program, trust me, I find eugenics programs to be repulsive. However, I wanted to shed light on how it was back in the past and why it was done. The program itself was inhumane and unethical, but it was part of human history, our history, to better ourselves, to free ourselves from diseases and early death. It was one of many mistakes our society had made. But should we delete any trace of our mistakes from the past just because it is unethical?

No, never!

We learn from our mistakes. And our society has certainly developed form our mistakes. But, if we start deleting any traces of our mistakes, wouldn't it make it more probable for later generations to make the same mistakes? Instead of spending our energy and time in changing what has already happened, we have to look to the future. The reason why our society is stagnant is because we are doing nothing to move forward; we are only looking back. Instead of arguing what in the past was moral or not, whether it should be removed or not, we need to spend our time, energy and resources to build a better future that does not repeat the mistakes that our society has made in the past.

It is time to look into the future and move forward. Whether it is the name, mural, statute, etc. it is not worth our investment to change the past. Just move on. Just keep moving.