Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton.

A building at my alma mater was originally named after a racist who was beaten to death with a tire iron in a parking lot.

Edwin de Barr was one of the first four professors at the University of Oklahoma.

He established the School of Pharmacy and the School of Petroleum Engineering.

He helped to design and build the University's chemistry building,

which still stands on the North Oval,

at the request of the faculty at that time, which still stands on the North Oval.

At the request of the faculty at that time,

it was named in his honor, DeBar Hall.

Halfable old guy, daddy Debar, as his students affectionately called him.

He was made Vice President of the University in 1921.

Turns out, he was the Grand Dragon of the Oklahoma KKK.

So a year later in 1922, the Board of Regents censured him.

The following year, they outright dismissed him, and abolished the position of Vice President, which I find charming

that they just got rid of, there was no Vice President, because that was that was you know clearly a superfluous

administrator raising tuition prices crazy so anyway debar so debar turned out to not

just be racist but a full-blown unabashed certified officer of the

Clou Klux Klan.

But wait, it gets worse!

DeBar's first wife died of poisoning in 1892.

This was back in Oklahoma's territorial days

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