Dozens of employees and college students at La Trobe College are pushing for the establishment to be renamed resulting from its namesake’s hyperlinks to Victoria’s colonial historical past.
In a submission to the state’s Indigenous truth-telling inquiry, a cohort of 57 employees and college students, together with professors and lecturers, has proposed the college be renamed resulting from Charles La Trobe’s position in colonising Victoria. However the college mentioned it had no plans to rename the establishment and mentioned the difficulty had not been raised throughout session for its Indigenous technique.
La Trobe was the primary superintendent of Port Phillip district from 1839 to 1850 and the primary lieutenant governor of the brand new colony of Victoria from 1851 to 1854.
The submission mentioned the college’s identify was “inappropriate” because of the position that La Trobe performed in colonising Victoria. It argued renaming would enable Victorians to higher perceive the state’s historical past from a First Nations perspective.
“In the spirit of truth-telling being encouraged by the commission, we think that it is inappropriate to name a public institution and place of learning after Charles La Trobe,” the submission to the Yoorrook Justice Fee, Australia’s first formal Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry, mentioned.
“It must be acknowledged that La Trobe was the chief government official in Victoria during a period of genocidal violence.”
Guardian Australia’s Killing Occasions collection documented the massacres of First Nations individuals that occurred through the nation’s frontier wars.
“La Trobe’s period as Superintendent and then Lieutenant-Governor included the Eumerella Wars, as well as the 1843 Warrigal Creek Massacre in which up to 180 were people killed,” the submission mentioned.
It additionally outlined La Trobe’s exclusion of Victoria’s First Nations individuals from the town of Melbourne, which included issuing an order in 1840 that no Indigenous individuals have been to go to the township.
The submission pointed to examples together with Canada’s Ryerson College being renamed Toronto Metropolitan College in 2022 because of the position its namesake, Egerton Ryerson, performed in designing the nation’s residential colleges for Indigenous kids which forcibly separated kids from their households.
“These examples show we do not need to retain names that celebrate harmful colonial ideas, figures or sites,” it mentioned.
The submission mentioned it hoped Yoorrook would “support our call for a name change as part of your broader commitment to truth-telling and justice”.
Victoria’s Deakin College final 12 months resolved to create a truth-telling assertion to acknowledge the historical past of its namesake.
The establishment is known as after Australia’s second prime minister, Alfred Deakin, who was one of many chief architects of the White Australia coverage.
The submission mentioned La Trobe didn’t commit or fee direct acts of violence in opposition to First Nations individuals however he did “maintain and exacerbate the conditions that led to violence, most directly by encouraging continuing settlement of Aboriginal countries by Europeans”.
An article on the college’s web site, authored by two of the submission’s signatories, says the La Trobe performed an integral position within the dispossession of Indigenous individuals in south-eastern Australia.
La Trobe was energetic within the UK’s anti-slavery motion and labored as a trainer in England earlier than migrating to Australia, the article mentioned.
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Victoria’s First Peoples’ Meeting – the democratically elected Indigenous physique – will start negotiating a statewide treaty with the federal government this 12 months. The meeting’s co-chair, Ngarra Murray, has flagged that twin naming could be mentioned throughout treaty negotiations.
Final week, Yoorrook – which has the identical powers as a royal fee – concluded public hearings centered on inequalities in well being, housing and schooling confronted by First Nations individuals.
The inquiry has a mandate to analyze and create a public document of the systemic injustice skilled by First Nations individuals in Victoria since colonisation, together with inequalities that persist as we speak. It is because of ship a last report by June subsequent 12 months that may make suggestions for reform and redress.
A spokesperson for La Trobe College mentioned it was conscious of the submission to Yoorrook.
“The University recognises Australia’s colonial history and its ongoing impacts, including the history of our namesake,” the spokesperson mentioned.
“We are committed to promoting Indigenous leadership, self-determination, and knowledge, as demonstrated through our Indigenous Strategy launched last year. We support Indigenous Peoples’ push for voice, treaty, and truth as described in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.”
The spokesperson mentioned the college’s Indigenous technique was knowledgeable by in depth session with First Nations employees and college students.
“While a name change wasn’t raised during the consultation, this doesn’t mean it’s not a genuine concern for people,” the spokesperson mentioned.
“Although the University has no current plans to change its name, we are always willing to hear feedback from our community, and particularly from First Nations students, staff, and communities that surround our campuses in Melbourne’s north and regional Victoria.”
