Should Amherst College Change Its Name?

Montreal has decided to rename its Amherst Street. It was named for Lord Jeff.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jeffery-amherst-montreal-denis-coderre-1.4287673
A while ago Amherst College dropped Lord Jeff as its mascot. Yet the college and the town are still named for this person. Is the college afraid of losing its prestigious albeit tarnished name? It seems rather hypocritical to cling to the Amherst name.

Interesting question. I am a diehard liberal, but I do wonder what will happen if everything needs to be renamed when it’s discovered that a long-dead historical figure did something contemptible. Do we forgive a person his questionable actions when we view them in context of the time in which they occured? No question that Amherst’s idea was horrible. Washington, Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers owned slaves. Do we rename all the Washington place names in the country? What about people who still bear those names?

A little research shows that many highly-regarded historical figures did some not very nice things. It doesn’t mean we should forget or excuse those things, but I think it’s just not logical to view some of the actions of people hundreds of years ago by today’s standards and beliefs. Obviously some historical figures are more heinous and unforgivable than others. (Hitler being a great example. It’s pretty unlikely there is any school named after him.) I guess one of the key factors is to consider whose side the person was on. If they were on the “right side”, does that make the action or belief more forgivable? I don’t have an answer.

I think it is much better to expose history than to pretend it doesn’t exist. Jeffrey Amherst doesn’t experience honor by having a school named after him. He’s long dead. It makes more sense to keep the name, and keep telling each generation what he did, good and bad, so that the truth remains out there. The very fact that people like him were once revered heroes, and are no longer such, shows how far thinking has come. It’s better to lay the whole thing out there than to say, “oops, this guy sucked, let’s forget about him and call the school Mea Culpa U instead.”

When it comes to more tangible things like statues of confederate war generals, whose presence is offensive, why not take them down and replace them with plaques telling the story of the Civil War and its major players, both good and bad?

IMO the college made its statement by replacing the mascot, Lord Jeff, with the Mammoths. It made sense to me that students didn’t want to literally CHEER for and otherwise rally around the guy.

The town and the college(s) should consider a plaque or other public work describing him and his actions.

In reality the college wasn’t named for Lord Jeff. It was named after the town of Amherst, which in turn was named in honor of Lord Jeff. Until and unless the town renamed itself I couldn’t see considering renaming the college. If we were to advocate for the renaming of Amherst College what would we do with UMass Amherst? It clearly needs to have the name of the town attached to differentiate it from the other UMass branches.

U-Mass Pioneer Valley works if they decide to change it.

Yale actually faces a similar problem.

and this is all idiotic: lets tear down the Washington monument, Monticello and on and on. Education goes a long way to providing context

@Center And this is why I am a fan of a liberal arts education for every college student. You can get that engineering degree, but you still need courses in history, philosophy, politics and world religion.