Passing all but unnoticed outside of the University of Michigan community late last week were decisions made by the university’s Board of Regents to remove the names of a past president and professor from the sides of U of M buildings because of the men’s odious cultural and political viewpoints.

In one case — C.C. Little, who was president of U of M from 1925-29 — the man’s support of eugenics and opposition against the idea that smoking tobacco causes cancer were well documented.

In a separate case, the Alexander Winchell House in the West Quadrangle Residence Hall will be renamed because of Winchell’s widely known racist views, The Associated Press reported. Winchell was a professor in the 1800s.

“Changing historical names should be difficult,” Regent Andrea Fisher Newman said in an AP story as she voted in favor of the move. “Doing the right thing should not be difficult.”

But it often is, as recent history has demonstrated.

Eugenics, very closely associated with the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, is the study of improving humanity through controlled breeding. Little once served as president of the American Eugenics Society. He also organized eugenics discussions and conferences while acting as U of ­­M president, AP reported.

Later in life, he backed big tobacco in claims that smoking didn’t cause cancer.

On Winchell, the AP story cited his 1880 book “Preadamites, or a Demonstration of the Existence of Men before Adam,” labeling it “unambiguously racist.”

We applaud the university’s Board of Regents for taking these steps, difficult or not. There have been quiet calls for both actions for years. We’re pleased those calls were finally heeded.