By Gus Thomson

Journal Staff Writer

Eugenics proponent and Nobel Prize winner William Shockley may not have his name attached to an Auburn park after all, an Auburn Recreation District director said.

Director Scott Holbrook said that he’ll be pursuing the possibility, based on legal advice he has received from an attorney, that the district isn’t required to name the park “Nobel Laureate William B. Shockley and his wife Emmy Shockley Memorial Park.”

Shockley won the Nobel Prize in 1956 for his pioneering work in electronics. But his controversial views on eugenics and genetics in an era of civil rights advances were viewed as racist.

Shockley’s second wife, Emmy Shockley, died in 2007 — 18 years after her husband. She left 28 wooded acres off Shockley Road to the parks district, with a condition attached on the name she had chosen.

While the parks board voted 3-2 on March 23 to accept the bequest, no discussion took place on naming the park after Shockley. In life, Shockley’s views on eugenics were controversial and that controversy followed him in death. A subsequent parks board meeting found seven speakers calling for a new name and nine speakers saying the gift of parkland trumped the requirement.

Holbrook said he’ll be asking for board members to move forward with an effort to get a court ruling that would verify the restriction on the name is null and void.

“Based on what I now know, it can be a request but it’s not legally binding but in the best interests of the district, we should have a court acknowledgment that it’s void,” Holbrook said.

The debate is now moving toward a larger stage with Karen Tajbl, an opponent of the Shockley park name, interviewed last week by Science magazine, which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.

Tajbl said she’s continuing to look at ways for the district to avoid a name she says would not necessarily reflect outright racism but certainly signal insensitivity – particularly to African-Americans. Shockley targeted blacks as genetically inferior and suggested people with an IQ below 100 be compensated if they underwent voluntary sterilization.

“I don’t understand why there are not more than 57 African Americans in our community and it makes me wonder why they’re not moving here,” Tajbl said. “(The Shockley Park name) does send a signal that they’re not welcome and that’s insensitive.”

Tajbl said she’s also looking into what can be done to change the name of three public roads – Shockley Court, Shockley Road and Shockley Woods Court – that are near the parkland.

The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.