The one-sided Holy Cross love story continues as President Rougeau announced over email that Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. ‘62, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), will have the Holy Cross Integrated Science Complex named in his honor this coming June. I find this decision to be incredibly premature, and I believe it sets a bad precedent for the future by essentially endorsing individuals before their careers have even been concluded. In the announcement email, President Rougeau also emphasized Holy Cross’s commitment to social justice, which accompanies a number of earlier commitments to anti-racism. Yet, Holy Cross has decided to name another place on campus after a white man, snubbing a notable black alumnus, Clarence Thomas. Fauci has produced questionable Covid-19 policies and is actively involved in certain controversies that are yet to be resolved. His record should be allowed to be scrutinized over time to properly demonstrate what his legacy shall be.
This announcement came far too early as Fauci is still a very active participant in affairs that many would consider partisan. His oversight of US government decision-making during the pandemic has resulted in many questionable decisions that lack substantial reasoning and have no consideration for other factors like mental health and quality of life. I covered this issue more extensively last semester in the Fenwick Review and would advise all those who are interested to read that article.
Additionally, Fauci is still under substantial scrutiny concerning NIH funding of suspect research overseas, and the possibility of a cover-up is a critical concern at this moment in time. With news stories that look bad for the media's agenda being suppressed and labeled as fake news, most notably the Hunter Biden laptop story, begs the question if certain right-wing anti-Fauci “conspiracies” are really conspiracies, or reality. If Fauci is untrustworthy, then the media cannot push its Covid agenda. Thus, Fauci’s image must be protected, and stories about Fauci that do not paint him in a good light are labeled as fake news.
One example of a controversy relating to the experiments Fauci’s NIAID has funded involves suspicious use of fetal tissue and its unconfirmed origins. Even though I believe there is still a lot to be explored with these controversies and that they should be taken with a grain of salt, they are concerning nonetheless and deserved to be explored. The first example is that Fauci’s NIAID reportedly gave $400,000 to the University of Pittsburgh to perform an experiment where human fetal skin is grafted on the rib cages of mice to measure the hair growth. Many claim that the skin for the experiment was taken from the scalps of aborted babies. This experiment represents just one of many potential blots on Fauci’s legacy that have yet to be fully examined.
Another example that has been presumably disproved by fact-checkers, yet doubt still remains due to the apparent untruthfulness that the media has displayed in the past, is that Fauci, through the NIAID, sent funding to a lab in Tunisia where inhumane experiments that would not be allowed in the United States were performed on Beagles. In these experiments, beagles’ heads were put in cages to which sand flies were introduced to eat the dogs’ heads. After a bipartisan letter requested answers it was claimed that the NIAID was falsely attributed as a funder of this experiment although skepticism remains. The point here is not that Fauci was complicit in these inhumane actions, but that Fauci is still an evolving figure, whose legacy has not been fully decided yet. Holy Cross should not make any rash decisions for the sake of being able to advertise the Fauci complex on campus tours.
Two larger issues also concern Fauci as a figure of admiration. The first issue is the use of gain-of-function research. During testimony on this subject, Fauci clearly and deliberately lied and misled congress members conducting oversight. The question of the NIAID's use of gain-of-function research was raised by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in May of last year, where Fauci concretely asserted that “We did not fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” Gain-of-function research is controversial because it is research that increases the transmissibility and/or virulence of a pathogen, generally involving its transmissibility towards humans, and could result in a virus that could be a pandemic-level threat if done improperly and dangerously. It was not till October 20th of last year that Fauci’s claims were disproved by a letter sent to Congress by the NIH, the parent organization of Fauci’s NIAID, which stated that gain-of-function research was funded and did occur in the Wuhan Institute of Virology by the NIAID. As of April of this year, Rand Paul has noted to the press that 11 yes or no questions related to gain-of-function research were given to Fauci in January that have still not been answered, pointing to a clear case of stonewalling of congressional oversight.
This first controversy segues into the lab leak theory; the second big controversy that will undoubtedly become more clear with time. The lab leak theory postulates that COVID-19 was in some way created in a lab and then somehow released into the public, resulting in the deaths of millions from COVID-19. The concern with Fauci is that his NIAID funded the gain-of-function research that took place on coronaviruses in bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and with a bat from Wuhan having been determined to be the origin of the virus, much concern is raised about the possibility of Fauci and the NIAID’s involvement in the creation of COVID-19. While I highly doubt that Fauci and the NIAID deliberately created that COVID-19 virus, the research done in Wuhan with the Chinese scientists under the authority of the Chinese Communist Party raises great concern. Seeing how Fauci lied about the NIAID’s involvement in gain-of-function research, the idea that Fauci may be lying about the origins of COVID-19 to protect himself is concerning and should be given greater scrutiny. Fauci’s legacy is still up in the air, and if internal emails or other evidence are revealed in the future that confirms suspicions about misconduct around experiments that Fauci’s NIAID funded, the College would be in a terrible position.
One might ask why this needed to be done. Did the science complex really even need a name in the first place? If Holy Cross is choosing to set a precedent for naming complexes after currently acting important figures, who have yet to finish their careers, then I request that President Rougeau name the complex consisting of O’Kane, Fenwick, Smith, and the Brooks Concert Hall the Thomas Complex, in order to honor United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas is currently the longest-serving justice on our nation's highest court, having held his position for 30 years and is a Holy Cross Alumni class of 1971, and has had a long career of originalist and textualist interpretation of the constitution. Thomas has rejected the notion of legislating from the bench, unlike other activist judges who seek to make policy through their decisions, and through this has stood up for the rights enshrined in the constitution for three decades.
Through dedicating this building to Justice Thomas, Holy Cross can take a step to make good on its policy of “anti-racism” and social justice by dedicating an unnamed complex to an esteemed and accomplished black civil servant who could give black students on campus representation that a complex named after another white man cannot give. Naming the complex after Justice Thomas would then accompany Healy residence hall as the only other building on campus named after a black man, even though it is noted that Healy identified and passed as white during his lifetime. During his time at Holy Cross, Justice Thomas helped found the Black Student Union on campus and stood up against a racist Holy Cross administration during a walkout to protest unfair treatment. Despite my request, I would rather see that neither man is honored on campus just yet, as the two are still evolving figures, whose legacies can still be shaped dramatically.
All in all, Fauci is fundamentally a political figure at this point in time, just like Justice Thomas, and setting the precedent of naming buildings or complexes after still active figures is a premature action to take. By naming the entire science complex after Fauci, other names within the science complex are minimized, and by using his name, Holy Cross appears to endorse every action that Fauci undertakes, some of which have yet to take place. It is clear that Fauci has done significant work in his field, much of which he should be applauded for, but certain controversies have yet to be resolved, and certain information has yet to be revealed, particularly about the pandemic. In this way, Fauci is still a polarizing figure, and any dedication to him should be postponed until his full history and legacy are made apparent over time.