The
University of
Wisconsin removed a controversial boulder from its Madison campus Friday after the Black Student Union and other activists objected to its description nearly 100 years ago with a racial slur.
Chamberlin Rock, which rests atop Observatory Hill, is named after a 19th Century geologist and former university president, Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, whose work centered on glacial deposits, according to a bio on the university’s
website.
But it was a reporter’s reference to the rock in a nearly century-old
Wisconsin State Journal article that prompted the push for its removal.