A made-up woman has been recruited to attend a made-up university and pursue a career in engineering.

The same made-up university has just named a new building after a man who crusaded for engineering programs nationally. But his made-up writings indicate he detested the thought of women working in engineering. The made-up woman must still go into the building regularly to seek resources for her program and for meetings.

When she walks into the building, she walks into a building that honors a man who, by virtue of her gender, would not have considered her competent.

This is similar to the situation minority students face, they say, when they walk into Catt Hall.

Some students choose not to walk into the building at all.

Chemika Butler and Jada Muhammad are fourth-year ISU students who do not look fondly on Catt Hall, choosing to avoid the building completely. The hall honors ISU alumnus Carrie Chapman Catt, who led the fight for women’s suffrage but has been criticized for alleged racist remarks in doing so.

“It’s a feeling of disgust when people uphold her when she’s blatantly offended my people,” Muhammad said.

“She’s not even a heroine to me,” Butler added.

This is why Blue Maas, a secretary in the graduate college, is not happy. Maas had her brick removed from the Plaza of Heroines in front of the hall over the summer.

She encourages members of the ISU community to continue protesting the name. “Do it. Do it quietly. Just do it.”

Derick Rollins is a professor of engineering and adviser to the president’s cabinet on diversity. “There’s a sense of feeling that [minorities] do not matter and that minority students on this campus don’t matter,” he said.

Butler and Muhammad said it’s easy for non-minority students to support the hall’s name. “How’s the world ever going to get any better if they are only concerned with what is affecting them?” Muhammad asked.

Allan Nosworthy, a graduate student and member of the September 29th Movement, couldn’t agree more.

“The fact that cultural studies programs are housed in a building that is named after a woman who used such political cultures as politically expedient is a huge contradiction and does nothing to honor those cultures or the studies of those cultures,” he said.