“Yale” is a key part, perhaps the most important part, of the university’s public brand - a brand grown and nurtured for over 300 years. The same cannot be said for “Calhoun.” The bottom line Yale stays and Calhoun goes.
Well, Elihu Yale traded a heck of a lot more than a couple.
“Yale” is a key part, perhaps the most important part, of the university’s public brand - a brand grown and nurtured for over 300 years. The same cannot be said for “Calhoun.” The bottom line Yale stays and Calhoun goes."
Right. So what that says is - the mere presence of people being hurt / offended / upset is not enough to justify renaming. But I thought dstark said earlier that if people are hurt and you aren’t in favor of renaming, you must be racist. Go figure.
Thanks for listening. 
“Right. So what that says is - the mere presence of people being hurt / offended / upset is not enough to justify renaming. But I thought dstark said earlier that if people are hurt and you aren’t in favor of renaming, you must be racist. Go figure.”
I’m not personally for or against either renaming. I don’t have a dog in this fight. My point was that if the renaming can be done without a big cost (financial or brand-wise) it will very likely get done. But if the renaming will cause the university to take huge hit it’s not going to happen.
Are they going to put a disclaimer on their web site? Maybe something like this:
“Our university is named after a slave trader.
Many building on campus are named after slave traders.
Many buildings on campus are named after slave holders.
Please do not apply if you may be offended by these names.
We will continue to provide very generous need-based aid to anyone with financial need, including descendants of former slaves, using our endowment created by slave traders and slave owners of the past”.
Nope, and I don’t know why you’d think they’d do so.
“My point was that if the renaming can be done without a big cost (financial or brand-wise) it will very likely get done.”
I think you’re right, and I don’t see a problem with that. The name Yale doesn’t only refer to one individual. It has acquired thousands of additional meanings. Calhoun isn’t comparable in terms of layers of meaning.
I am not a big legal mind but I would think that if they are not renaming everything they would need a disclaimer.
Like Disney that recently put these signs all over about alligators.
@Ohiodad51 I didn’t know about the Wlson College renaming push at Princeton. How did Princeton manage to retain the name without much hoopla?
Kids should probably stop applying to colleges that are going to offend them. There are over 4,000 coleges to choose from. Neither my kids nor I chose to apply to Yale, because of its location and its lack of a strong engineering program. Others can make that same choice, but for different reasons.
Maybe someone could start a thread on colleges that have no building names that are offensive. Are there any colleges that would make that list, or would name changes potentially be required at all?
The decision to honour Elihu Yale was made because he donated a substantial sum to the university, which is, on the face of it neutral, I suppose, and was made at a time when slavery, enslavement and slave trading was perfectly legal and accepted, and when the country the university was in was a monarchy.
The decision to honour Calhoun was made because he was an alumnus whose political legacy was obviously thought worthy of honour, even though it was made at a time when slavery, enslavement and slave trading was abolished, illegal and widely considered a moral evil, and the country was a democracy.
What exactly that political legacy of Calhouns was that was considered worthy of honour is perfectly visible in his stained glass portrait which portrays him with…oh wait, that’s not visible at all any more because that particular bit of history has been erased. Guess one would have to read up on that one, or maybe put up a plaque or something.
There is a distinguishable difference between the cases. Not that a case couldn’t be made to rename Yale, too, but is not as easy as reversing a decision that should have been unacceptable eve at the time it was made.
I suggest the name Hounies’ College. That way, one would honour ALL the alumni and alumnae that have transcended Calhouns legacy by making the college a place that accepted students of all races, shaped them into a community and helped them succeed in life - I understand that but for the name, Calhoun college was, or is, all that - and no one whose identity is bound up in being able to call themselves a Hounie could complain.
Separate issue- but why has Yale not considered rescinding Bill Cosby’s honorary degree as other colleges have ? http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/06/30/uconn-revokes-bill-cosbys-honorary-degree-yale-remains-silent/. And, FWIW, like Ezra Stiles,Calhoun College has renamed its dining hall already. Its a start. http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/07/07/calhoun-to-rename-dining-hall-after-thompson/
And lastly, a quick perusal of the Yale Daily News’s website shows that many deans of RCs stepped down/ have been replaced. Don’t know what the normal tenure is for a RC dean, so don’t know if this is a normal transition, but it sure seems like a LOT were replaced all at once. Seems there is more going on behind the Ivy towers there.
@MOMANDBOYSTWO I would say the hoopla was about equivalent to the Calhoun renaming discussion, but I’m guessing you weren’t on CC when it happened. Outside of CC and New Haven, the Calhoun controversy is also pretty much nonexistent.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Again, let’s not stray too far. What do alligators and Disney have to do with Yale? Nothing. Several posts deleted.
“Outside of CC and New Haven, the Calhoun controversy is also pretty much nonexistent.”
What?? And here I thought it was one of the most Very Pressing Issues in the black community overall, easily equivalent to police shootings, crime, racism in job searches, and bad public schools. (/sarcasm)
http://paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/05/17/stanford-renaming-committee-seeks-input-from-community
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/03/18/renaming-barrows-hall-would-build-better-future/
@Tigerle agree on paras one and two; we diverge on para three. I don’t think the point of the “disappeared” stained glass windows was to glorify Calhoun for promoting slavery - more an effort to present a narrative of his life and situate him in his time.
It’s a subtle point, but I think you could describe the thinking of the Yale Corporation in the '30s as: JCC was the first Yalie VP, held other high offices and by acclamation was one of the greatest senators (recall that the Senate committee - chaired by JFK, by the way - that declared JCC to be one of the greatest five senators did so in 1957, more than a quarter-century after Calhoun College was built), so he deserved to be honored on that basis.
The slavery aspect doesn’t seem to have been considered - one assumes the Yale Corporation viewed JCC as a product of his time. Rather like you argue that Elihu Yale is different from JCC because “slavery, enslavement and slave trading were perfectly legal and accepted” in the 18th century, the Yale Corporation likely thought that what JCC did was legal and accepted when he did it - and viewed it neutrally on that basis. Of course, as has been pointed out upthread, the country was focused on North-South reconciliation at that time, and racism/segregation were much more prevalent.
We’ll never know, but I believe that if Yale had removed all the stained glass windows and oil portraits of JCC in the college earlier (and added a factual plaque or two to ensure that the history wasn’t entirely “disappeared”), this controversy would never have erupted. Yale has a lot of history majors, but I’ll bet that the vast majority of undergraduates wouldn’t have been able to tell you who JCC was until recently. Absent the visuals, JCC’s name being on the college would have been just like Elihu Yale’s on the university - a part of the landscape that few looked into or cared about.
“On a campus where a white supremacist’s name adorns the building that houses the ethnic studies, African American studies and gender and women’s studies departments, this move is long overdue.”
i think the devil is in the details. What constitutes a white supremacist? I think through the lens of some of today’s well-meaning youth, the definition of white supremacist can be drawn quite widely - to the point where I daresay the founders of all of our elite colleges across the board would qualify. (Remind me how many of them opened the doors immediately to blacks?)
By that token, how many of them believed fully in women’s education? Is not pushing for the inclusion of women on campus a “sin” that warrants renaming? What about if women are offended living in a dorm named for someone who didn’t want women there in 18-aught-something?
Some of the comments posted after the Yale daily news articles are worthy of a read. One made an interesting point that would the students who are uncomfortable living in Calhoun equally uncomfortable working for investment houses or big law firms or companies that were founded by people who may have been involved in the slave trade it in some capacity, or were racist or bigoted in some other way in their history?
MIT famously numbers their buildings and ‘courses’, and like true engineers people refer to most buildings by their numbers … “let’s drop a pumpkin off the roof of 54”. That completely eliminates all these problems.
Won’t work at Yale though. They could only go up to 20 before the Yalies all ran out of fingers and toes 