No of course there weren’t that many slave traders, but there wasn’t really an anti slavery movement in the late 1600s when he was making his money.
They had no problem oppressing people in many of the countries they took over, telling the citizens of a country they were second class (no different from back of the bus) and needed to stay there on trains in countries like India.
^Baby steps. 
I am judging the mastodon within the context of its time, @usualhopeful =P~
I seemed to have slept through the whole Halloween scandal and just saw some of those videos. Compare that set of offensive costumes with these at Stanford graduation. I am not sure they are that bad. 
http://news.stanford.edu/2016/06/13/stanford-commencement-2016-wacky-walk/
I think the problem is that either slavery is a universal bad, in which case anyone associated in any way with its existence is equally bad, or that individuals should be judged within the context of the time in which they lived. If you choose the first path, then Elihu Yale is as sinful as John Calhoun, and Thomas Jefferson is interchangeable with Simon LeGree.
If you choose the second path, and concede that some relativistic judgments should be made, at what point is there a sufficient shifting of the common mind away from the practice of slavery? Is it when the Quakers started expelling slave owners in the late 1600s/early 1700s? When the British Navy imposed the west African Quarantine in the early 1800s, or when Parliment abolished slavery in the empire in the 1830s? Was it when the modern American abolitionist movement began in the late1830s/early 1840s? Was it when Fredrick Douglas published Life of an American Slave in 1845? Pick your date.
History is objectively messy. Most here make what I believe to be a mistake in assuming that the issue of slavery in the United States and indeed throughout the world was viewed the same way in 1840 as it was in 1870 or even worse today. That is simply and provably false. John Calhoun died in 1850. It is a fact that for much of if not all of his life, slavery was seen by first a majority and later a substantial minority of those living at the time as an acceptable institution.
I personally think either argument is legitimate. But what I dispute is the ability to castigate Calhoun because he existed while there was a nascient abolitionist movement, but not Yale when only a couple of wierd Quakers and Menonites cared about slavery.
Well, slavery is a universal bad, but it doesn’t follow from that that everyone associated from it is equally bad, or that individuals can’t be judged in the context of their time.
Part of that context also has to take into account that whether you were likely to be an abolitionist or a slave owner was dictated not just by era, but place and class. A rich southern planter in 1860 was almost certainly going to own slaves. And, in fact, some southern states made it pretty difficult to free slaves and/or demanded that freed slaves immediately leave the state, which wouldn’t have been feasible in a lot of cases (i.e, if a freed slave had a wife and children on a neighboring plantation). So I don’t think the litmus test can be ownership of slaves alone, given the near universality of the practice among certain groups, and given various other complications that would have made it difficult for even a Southern gentleman uncomfortable with slavery to unilaterally withdraw from the practice.
But again, Calhoun is different. Even among Southern slaveholders, he was particularly vociferous in his defense of slavery and opposition to any limit to its reach. Unlike, say, Thomas Jefferson, this is what he is primarily known for in history, for all that he also had other accomplishments in his long political career. So, it doesn’t take a blanket rejection of every person involved in slavery to think his name deserves to go.
This is simply wrong. 80 years after his death Yale named a residential college after him. 107 years after his death, a US senate committee named him one of the 5 greatest senators in history. The idea that he is primarily known for his defense of slavery is ridiculous - talk about revisionist history!
What I am having a problem wrapping my head around in this thread is this:
Many here are arguing for an intellectual discussion of Calhoun and his merits (with regard to others in his time) as the main catalyst in whether to remove his name or not. As if the problem is merely a historical context one or not.
I see it as a group of students saying we feel we are actively being harmed here- insidiously suffering in a subversive way by having to assume an identity of an oppressor and we want it to end. (Similar to say a female secretary that has to look at posters of strippers in her bosses office- a reasonable woman would be offended by that ) It creates a hostile environment. The (black) cafeteria worker became so upset day after day having to look at the windows depicting slaves that he took a broom to smash them.
Why is no one addressing the real live harm happening and do the students have merit to not have to be subjected to that environment?
For example College board has an “unintentional bias” claus stating that AP classes have to be conducted in a way that prevents any unintentional bias that would prohibit any students from achieving maximum potential in that course bc of race, gender etc. To me this is an unintentional bias kind of thing that clearly creates an environment that causes a group bc of their race an inferior educational experience.
Why is this ok?
Nine of the residential colleges are named after oppressors. The university itself is named after an oppressor. If there’s real live harm being done, why not change them all?
I think many of us in this thread question whether it is a “real active harm…causing suffering.” Probably most students don’t even know who Calhoun was. Those who learn probably consider the naming of the R.C. to be an old-fashioned anachronism.
Some of us are trying to understand why a picture of a slave in a stained-glass window (talking here of the one the janitor broke) is necessarily offensive. There are many depictions of repugnant institutions in the art museum, library.
Personally I am on the fence. I don’t think the name and stained-glass image are causing “real harm and suffering” but I am also not necessarily opposed to changing them out of politeness.
It’s either all or none…the argument change everything or change nothing is usually said by somebody who wants to change nothing. 
@DoyleB, why don’t you want Yale to change the name from Calhoun to something else?
@runswimyoga, that’s a great post.
I am at loss here. Students who cannot exist in Calhoun college because of the name can transfer to a different one. Students who cannot exist in Yale because of the name can transfer to a different university. Students also have an option to never apply to Yale. Why do you get to dictate how private university calls their buildings?
I don’t really care if they change the name or not. It’s their school, they can do whatever they want to - if renaming it makes them feel better, then by all means they should do so. I’m just amused by the selective outrage directed at Calhoun. It fits a pattern I see on a daily basis.
@CCDD14 expresses it well. No one is disputing the right to have a conversation or a debate on whether Yale should rename this or any college. What I at least am disputing is the idea that only individuals of a particular class get to have a valid voice.
@DoyleB, you see what you want to see, don’t you?
You don’t care? Really?
Others care. If you don’t care, why do you care if others care? You don’t have the same experiences as others.
You do care.
Honest to goodness, I don’t care at all if they change the name. Until a few days ago, I’d never even heard of the place. A week from now, I’ll forget this entire conversation. But I’ll still see the selective outrage on the news every night. That I do care about.
@Ohiodad51, it’s not your fight. We have a vast of amount opinions here. Everybody gets to share their opinions.
Yale is going to decide.
You are saying your opinion of the African American experience in this country is as valid as somebody who is African American?
Just to be clear, in the Venn diagram of Yale students, we are talking about intersection that A) Choose to be offended by Calhoun the slave supporter, and B) Not offended by Yale the slave trader. Is that right?
quote It creates a hostile environment.
[/quote]
This goes back to intentionally offending (the stripper posters in the office), vs. choosing to be offended.
Sounds like he has psychological issues. I wouldn’t want him around college age kids.
This long thread reminds me of the time a reporter asked the great Louis Armstrong “What is Jazz?”
He replied: “If you gotta ask, you’ll never know”.