I can get behind that. Washington and his weird wife were major slaveholders. Only reason slavery lasted as long as it did was because of attitudes that it wasn't that bad of a thing. By honoring slaveholders, we today are saying the same, that it was just an "old timey" thing, and we should just understand and move on. 
I understand that humans were bought in Africa, condemned to be transported and often killed in the the process, separated from kin, and beaten and sometimes worked to death. Nothing in that is inspirational, nothing in that says those who profited from the murderous activity deserve respect.Lots of people in prison do good things, but then they kill someone or kidnap someone. One day this country will honor the suffering and lives of the slaves by dishonoring the terrible people who treated them so badly.

If I were black and had to go to class in a building named for a slavery advocate, I would feel like the University valued him and slavery.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene