A Vermont Superior Court judge recently issued a ruling in favor of Middlebury College, closing a longstanding dispute over the Middlebury Chapel.
The decision may be the final chapter of former Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas’ campaign to bring back the building’s original moniker — Mead Memorial Chapel — on behalf of the estate of former Gov. John A. Mead.
The lawsuit was sparked by the college’s decision to rechristen the Mead Memorial Chapel to Middlebury Chapel in the fall of 2021, citing Mead’s “central role in advancing eugenics policies that resulted in harm to hundreds of Vermonters” as the reason for the change.
In a ruling on April 9, Superior Court Judge Robert Mello granted Middlebury College summary judgement, which resolves a case without a trial, and dismissed Douglas’s final claims.
Douglas, who is the special administrator of the Mead estate, said that he is disappointed by the decision. He is still in the process of determining whether to appeal the dismissal, he added.
“I respectfully disagree with the court’s conclusion, and am talking with our attorneys and the descendants of Governor Mead about the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court,” Douglas said.
A previous order issued by Mello in October decided the central question, allowing the college to maintain the new name of the chapel. But the decision left the unsettled question of whether the agreement between Mead and the college was a gift or a contract, and if it was the latter, whether the contract of “good faith and fair dealing” was breached by the renaming.
The college celebrated the ruling in a statement provided by spokesperson Jon Reidel, which said the decision “resolves all claims” brought by the Mead estate.
“The decision affirms that there were no viable legal claims against Middlebury in this lawsuit, further affirming the Court’s decision in October 2024 that Middlebury does not need to return to the original name of the Chapel or return the gift made by Governor Mead,” the statement read.
Mello wrote in the recent April ruling that there was no evidence of a “perpetual naming condition, any sort of non-disparagement agreement, or any contract at all that possibly could have remained in force in 2021 such that its implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing could then have been breached.”
Douglas’ claim of an implied covenant between Mead and Middlebury College lacked merit, Mello wrote.
“Regardless how one views removing the Mead name from the chapel or judgments about historical figures based on contemporary standards, the restriction on free speech at the heart of Gov. Douglas’s covenant claim should have been agreed to by the parties if that in any way was the goal of the agreement,” Mello wrote.
Douglas said in an interview that the chapel was named in honor of Mead’s ancestors, not Mead himself or his wife, as asserted by the college in their announcement of the renaming decision. Douglas views Middlebury College’s decision to remove Mead’s name from the chapel as a product of “cancel culture” and part of a larger trend of curtailing free expression on college campuses, he said.
“There’s a lot of concern now, legitimately, about free expression on college campuses,” Douglas said. “Governor Mead was punished, not for anything he did, but for something he said, and that’s really frustrating, because a college ought to be a place that welcomes different ideas, even those that are controversial and offensive. That’s the nature of an educational institution.”
Douglas said Mead’s farewell speech as governor in 1912 — while espousing eugenicist ideas — ultimately did not have a significant impact on Vermont’s eugenic sterilization policies, which were instituted after Mead’s death in 1920.
Middlebury College’s statement provided to VTDigger ended with reaffirmation of the college’s dedication to free speech principles: “The College has and will remain committed to exercising the fundamental right of freedom of expression and open debate on our campus.”
Douglas said that in an earlier ruling of the case, Mello opened up the specific question of whether or not there was a contract as an appropriate query for a jury. Douglas said that may be an avenue he could take to argue for appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
“That’s one area of concern to us, and particularly because this judge said earlier that the question of whether it is a contract could go to a jury. Now, he said no, so that’s confusing to us, and makes a legitimate issue for appeal,” Douglas said.
