Derek Hamilton, a Sacramento State junior majoring in history, has started a Web site and online petition which he hopes will convince the university administration to change the name of the C.M. Goethe Arboretum, located at the J Street entrance to campus because, Hamilton contends, Goethe was a racist whose views no longer reflect the values of the university.

“I’m not any kind of activist, in general,” Hamilton said, “but I do believe in more liberal principles, and racism tends to just. . .piss me off.”

Hamilton, who builds Web sites for a living said, “this is just a way that I could do something that I felt that, for me, would be really simple to do.”

Hamilton built the Web site, changethesign.org, over the winter break, and launched it during the second week of classes. In addition to the petition, which so far has been signed by over 60 faculty and students, the Web site includes a short biography of Goethe (pronounced “Gay-tee”) and links to articles about him, including the work of Sac State professor emeritus of social work Tony Platt, who has done extensive research into Goethe.

Hamilton said he found out about Goethe chiefly through Platt’s work, which Hamilton had read about in articles printed in the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento News & Review.

Sacramento-area businessman and philanthropist Charles M. Goethe, for whom the Arboretum was named in 1961, left hundreds of thousands of dollars to Sac State upon his death in 1966.

The CSUS Foundation still administers those funds, earmarked mostly for research grants and scholarships in the biological sciences.

According to Platt, Goethe was also a right-wing supporter of the human eugenics movement, which led campaigns to restrict immigration from Latin America and supported the forced sterilization of society’s “undesirables,” which in Goethe’s view usually meant people of color.

Platt also found that Goethe funded anti-Asian campaigns, praised the Nazis before and after World War II, and practiced discrimination in his own business dealings, refusing to sell real estate to Mexicans and Asians.

Platt found that Goethe’s last recorded donation, three months before he died in 1966, was to the Northern League, a group dedicated to bringing “Nordic peoples” together against the “worthless peoples of Africa and Asia.”

Platt’s conclusions are based mostly on the thousands of letters and pamphlets Goethe wrote in support of his views, which Platt quotes directly throughout his research.

Platt supports Hamilton’s petition, and has signed it. “The sign as it stands has to go,” Platt said. “I do think its offensive to name a public space that people pass by every day after a person associated with such injustice and inequality.”

Platt, however, does not believe that simply changing the name of the Arboretum would be enough. “The purpose behind a public memorial is get people engaged with history.” Platt thinks that along with changing the name, some sort of plaques or other signage should be included that explain who Goethe was, what he believed in, why the Arboretum was named after him in the first place, and ultimately why the name was changed.

“This is something that should be discussed,” Platt said. “How did this happen? How would you make sure that this doesn’t happen again?”

Regina Unimuke, a Sac State senior in ethnic studies and the president of the African Students Association, has also signed the petition, and agrees that Goethe should no longer be honored by the university.

“There’s a lot of diversity at Sac State, and if you’re going to name an Arboretum after a Nazi sympathizer, I don’t think that’s very sensitive,” Unimuke said. “We can change the name to reflect everybody.”

Professor of social work Lynn Cooper has also signed the petition. “Every time I drive on campus I find it so offensive to see that sign,” she said.

Cooper includes information on Goethe in some of her social policy classes, and has found that students typically don’t know anything about Goethe.

“They’re really shocked and appalled,” Cooper said, when the students find out about Goethe’s views.

The university administration is looking into the issue, according to university spokesman Frank Whitlatch. Whitlatch said President Alexander Gonzalez and the new Executive Director of the CSUS Foundation Matthew Altier have been conducting an investigation, which began last year, into “all aspects of the Goethe trust.”

Whitlatch said the administration won’t be ready to comment publicly on the issue until the investigation is complete.

“They’re going to look at everything,” Whitlatch said, “to get a full picture of what’s going on.”

Hamilton hopes his petition will put some extra pressure on the administration to do something about Goethe’s legacy at the university.

“I would like to have, honestly, a minimum of a couple thousand (signatures), ” Hamilton said, “because I feel like if we can get a good percentage of the Sac State population and community members to sign the petition, saying that they are interested in this history, I think that will provide a little bit more impetus to the administration to do something publicly about it.”

Hamilton doesn’t have any specific ideas about who or what the Arboretum should be named after. He is more interested in getting the campus community talking about the issue.

“Whatever the name is, as long as it’s a public decision,” Hamilton said.