In May 2021, Emory’s University Committee on Naming Honors voted unanimously that Robert Yerkes name should be removed from Emory’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Yerkes defended eugenics, supporting institutionalization and sterilization as the “most feasible and effective in cutting off from the population the supply of defectives.” He played a role with other psychologists in creating tests to determine the mental “fitness” of army draft recruits during World War I, the results of which bucketed a disproportionate number of Black and immigrant men as “feeble-minded.” Beyond the direct negative impact this had on these individuals, the tests and their results spilled over into the broader culture, leading to an increase in “intelligence testing,” growing demands to restrict immigration, and legitimizing assumptions of criminality in Black people. We’re still dealing with these cultural effects today. He also led the US down the cruel path of experimenting on chimpanzees.

Yerkes Primate Center confined and/or experimented on 3,755 non-human primates in 2020. There is no such thing as an illegal experiment on animals in the U.S., allowing our tax dollars to pay for extreme animal cruelty. Drugs that pass safety and efficacy tests in animals fail to be safe and effective in human trials 95% of the time. We’re wasting billions of dollars and millions of animal lives every year by following the antiquated lead of the shameful Robert Yerkes.

Emory University has an opportunity to lead into a future where ethics and morals are put before profits, “legacies,” and business-as-usual. The best way to honor those hurt by Robert Yerkes and his legacy is to shut down the Yerkes National Primate Research Center altogether, and move into the twenty-first century with human-relevant alternative models that can benefit all, at the expense of none.