The University of Oregon has many prominent alums: Steve Prefontaine, Ann Curry, Phil Knight, Ken Kesey, and me. A driving force behind the founding of the University of Oregon in 1876 was Matthew Deady. He served as the university’s president for its first twenty years. The first building at the U of O was named in his honor and is still in use today. Deady’s other accomplishments include serving as president of the convention to draft Oregon’s first constitution and he was named Oregon’s first district court judge after statehood. Deady also was a staunch defender of slavery and a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. Oops.
The Ku Klux Klan became prominent in Oregon during the 1920s. The Klan promoted “One-Hundred Percent Americanism,” meaning white and Protestant. Citizens of a state that already had a spirit of anti-immigration and religious bigotry in its laws and culture readily accepted the KKK’s appeal. Klansmen were elected to local and state offices. The legislature famously passed a law aimed at Catholics requiring children to be educated only in public schools. The Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional, but other legislation passed prohibiting religious garb in public schools and outlawing land ownership by aliens. The latter was directed primarily at Japanese.
Religious and fraternal organizations, a few politicians, and numerous newspapers throughout the state vigorously opposed the Klan. Charges of corruption and sex scandals in Oregon and other states eventually diminished the KKK’s influence.
Michael Schill, current president of the University, recently stated that 
Deady Hall should be renamed as soon as possible. Although Matthew Deady opposed the Confederate states’ secession, and later staunchly defended the rights of Chinese immigrants, and as a juror rendered decisions in favor of seamen against officers and shipping companies, and small merchants against corporations, his pre-Civil War position on slavery and subsequent association with the KKK disqualifies his name on a building.
There is also pressure to rename Dunn Hall, a student dormitory. Frederic Dunn was the “Exalted Cyclops” of the Eugene chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
Perhaps the simple solution is to name everything “Knight.” That trend has already begun.
In honor of Ken Kesey I propose they rename the place The Cuckoo’s Nest.