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Western has removed the name of a late former professor accused of racism and white supremacy, Kenneth Hilborn, from six scholarships after receiving permission from the Ontario Court of Justice in August 2023.
Hilborn, who taught history and international relations for 36 years at Western University, donated $1 million as an estate gift after he died in 2013, which was used to establish four undergraduate and two graduate scholarships — named after Hilborn — by the history department in 2016.
In 2019, the CBC reported criticism from scholars that Hilborn had defended apartheid and white-minority rule in South Africa, as well as opposed feminism, LGBTQ2+ rights and student activism in his research.
In 2022, Western sought approval from the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee to change the names and terms of six awards funded by Hilborn’s bequest and the court agreed in August 2023.
“These changes were requested based on concerns about the harmful impact of his published work,” the university told the Gazette in a statement.
According to the university, three of the six original scholarships have been cancelled, with relevant portions of the bequest used to establish a new Equity and Diversity Graduate Student Recruitment Award in History. The remaining three have been renamed the Doctoral Completion Award in History, Graduate Internship in Public History, and Undergraduate and Graduate Student Award for Research and Conference Travel in History.
After the renaming, the descriptions of the awards will continue to acknowledge Hilborn as the donor, explain his teaching career at Western and acknowledge the harmful impact of his work and actions.
The three remaining awards have been made available to Western students beginning in the 2023-24 academic year.
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