Kenneth Hilborn taught history and international relations at the University of London, Ont. from 1961 to 1997. After his death in 2013 at age 79, Hilborn’s estate bequeathed $1 million to Western, including $750,000 to the history department for four undergraduate and two graduate awards that have been awarded since 2016. In 2019, scholars began calling on the school to intervene, linking the scholarships to the universities’ legitimization of far-right beliefs. “He was openly opposed to the equality of men,” said Will Langford, who teaches history at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Langford wrote an essay in 2020 in which he called Hilborn a “racist” and criticized Western for not acknowledging Hilborn’s views on the scholarships.
A battle of essays
Langford, who learned of Western’s plans to remove Hilborn’s name from the scholarships during a phone call from CBC News, called the development “good news.” Students are pictured participating in orientation events Tuesday at Western, a school where Hilborn taught from 1961 to 1997. (Colin Butler/CBC News) “I think the department is taking the opportunity in front of them to engage with that history, the history of their own department, their own university, and I hope they teach about scholarship in their courses. “I would also hope for some kind of recognition, perhaps on the department’s website, so that anyone in the public who wants to know more can easily find it.” Hilborn’s name is attached to six scholarships at the university, bequeathed from his estate. (Western University) Francine McKenzie, an assistant professor at Western who also teaches history and international relations, responded to Langford’s 2020 essay with one of her own that same year titled “Western’s history department and the Hilborn student awards.” “The Hilborn Awards do good, now and forever,” he wrote. “While the Hilborn awards are on a much more modest scale than the Rhodes fellowships, the comparison is useful: The Rhodes Trust does not support the views of Cecil Rhodes; the history department does not support the views of Ken Hilborn.” In the essay, he noted that Western’s history department “discussed the implications of creating student awards through his endowment and decided that the awards should remain.” Three years later, Western University quietly made a U-turn, filing an application in an Ontario court this year to remove Hilborn’s name from the awards.
Hilborn’s work “did harm,” the group says
McKenzie did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News on Tuesday. But newly discovered court records from the university in its petition to the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee to remove Hilborn’s name from the scholarships offer some insight into what may have prompted Western to change its mind. Students returned Tuesday to Western for the 2022-23 academic year. (Colin Butler/CBC News) According to the documents, Western’s history department created a research team to examine “whether the criticism leveled at Hilborn had merit.” The research team believed that Hilborn’s academic work “did harm” and caused “epistemological violence by oppressing, dismissing and trivializing people who were oppressed, vulnerable or discriminated against”. Court documents also state that Hilborn’s work “reinforced arguments of white supremacy, emphasized the safety of whites, never blacks, and explicitly affirmed the benevolence and superiority of whites.” The history department’s research team recommended removing Hilborn’s name from the scholarships, court documents say, because if the school did not, Western “would be seen as tacitly condoning and condoning his views,” which the researchers noted “it goes against the goals of Western University. and values”. Hilborn seemed to have died without living relatives. Court filings in the case make no mention of his family, with the exception of his mother and father, who were already deceased in 2013. Hilborn’s obituary, which is still available on Western University’s website, mentions no children or friends and the Office of The Public Guardian and Administrator is regularly called upon to make legal decisions about estates when there is no one else to do so. Court filings do not say how Western will rename the scholarships or when that might happen. “As the matter remains before the court, it would not be appropriate to comment at this time,” Jordan Diacour, the Hamilton lawyer representing Western in the legal case, wrote to CBC News in an email Friday. Marcia Steyaert, the school’s executive director of editorial strategy and media relations, did not return a request for comment by press time.
