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Donna Loring is a Penobscot Nation citizen, Vietnam War veteran, former tribal representative to the Maine Legislature and former chief of the Penobscot Nation Police Department. She is a member of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees.
I was one of five members of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees who voted against removing former Sen. George Mitchell’s name from the George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and the George J. Mitchell Peace Scholarship.
I want to explain why.
My vote was not a declaration that every allegation concerning Mitchell is false. I do not know that. But neither has there been a finding that he committed wrongdoing. The university’s own task force acknowledged that fact.
There is a difference between an allegation, an association and a finding of wrongdoing. I believe a university, perhaps more than almost any other institution, has an obligation to recognize those distinctions.
But there was something else weighing heavily on me when I voted: legacy.
A legacy is not simply a name attached to a building, center or scholarship. It is the record of what a person has done with a lifetime.
George Mitchell represented Maine in the U.S. Senate for 15 years, eventually becoming Senate majority leader. After leaving the Senate, he undertook the extraordinarily difficult task of chairing the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. He spent more than 22 months in those negotiations and made more than 100 trips across the Atlantic.
Those negotiations produced the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, helping bring an end to three decades of violence in Northern Ireland in which thousands of people had died. President Bill Clinton awarded Mitchell the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his leadership in the Northern Ireland peace process.
That is part of Mitchell’s legacy.
So are thousands of young people from Maine who have received Mitchell Scholarships. What began with 20 scholars in 1995 has grown into a community of more than 4,000 scholars and alumni. Mitchell used money remaining from his Senate campaign fund, after offering refunds to contributors, to help establish the scholarship program.
Only days before our vote, Mitchell Scholars and supporters gathered again to celebrate that continuing work.
That is also part of his legacy.
I recognize that institutions in Ireland have also reconsidered or removed Mitchell’s name from scholarships associated with him. I understand why universities and other institutions are struggling with these questions. The allegations surrounding Jeffrey Epstein are deeply disturbing, and association with him understandably raises serious questions.
But difficult questions should cause a university to examine history more carefully, not less.
My concern is what standard we establish when we remove an honor because of allegations and reputational damage when there has been no finding of wrongdoing.
The university system’s own commemorative naming policy says removal should occur only in “extraordinary circumstances.” It says removal “must not be undertaken lightly.” The policy also asks those making such decisions to respect “the considered judgments of the past” while recognizing “the fallibility of their own judgments.”
Students who wanted Mitchell’s name removed deserved to be heard. So did faculty, alumni and members of the public. Listening to them is part of our responsibility as trustees.
We also have an obligation to exercise our own judgment, examine the evidence and consider the precedent our decisions establish.
I worry about a standard in which reputational harm can outweigh the absence of a finding of wrongdoing. Reputations can change quickly. Public opinion can change quickly. The principles by which a university makes consequential decisions should be more durable.
And I worry about what happens to legacy.
We should not ignore the questions raised about Mitchell’s association with Epstein. We should not minimize them, and we should certainly not prevent students from examining them. But neither should those questions cause us to diminish everything else.
More than 4,000 Mitchell Scholars are part of the historical record.
Fifteen years representing Maine in the Senate are part of that record.
And the Good Friday Agreement is part of that record.
History is rarely neat enough to divide human beings into columns marked good and bad. Universities should be among the places where we confront that complexity rather than remove it.
Tell the whole story.
Tell students what Mitchell accomplished. Tell them about his association with Epstein. Tell them what has been alleged. Tell them what Mitchell has denied. Most importantly, distinguish between what has been established and what has not.
Then allow people to wrestle with the complete record.
I respect that other trustees reached a different conclusion. It was a difficult decision, and I do not question the sincerity of those who voted to remove the name.
But I could not vote to diminish a lifetime of documented public service based on allegations for which there has been no finding of wrongdoing.
For me, this was about more than George Mitchell.
It was about evidence. It was about fairness. It was about the responsibility of a university to preserve and examine history rather than simplify it. It was about a university’s responsibility to educate its students.
And it was about legacy.
That is why I voted no.