University of Wisconsin moves boulder seen as symbol of racism

The University of Wisconsin has removed a 70-ton boulder from its Madison campus at the request of minority students who viewed the rock — which was referred to by a slur for blacks — as a symbol of racism.

Chamberlin Rock atop Observatory Hill — named after Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a 19th-century geologist and former university president – was at least once referred to as a “n—–head” rock in a 1925 article in the Wisconsin State Journal. Minority students have complained that the rock represents a history of discrimination. The derogatory term was commonly used during the 1920s to describe any large, dark rock.