Mention of Cassius Clay reminded me of this interesting Yalie: http://www.complex.com/style/2016/03/cassius-clay-profile
Why did Constantinople get the works?
It’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
@JHS Great, Im going to sing that all day now…
According to the Yale Women’s Center, renaming Calhoun after Grace Hopper isn’t good enough because Hopper was white, and this choice represents an attempt by the Yale administration “to corrode and erase the long history of activism by students of color — particularly black women — on this campus”: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/02/17/chavez-and-wang-it-is-incoherent-to-offer-gender-as-a-substitute-for-race/ …smh…
Give me a break! Yale makes an excellent decision to remove the name of a pro-slavery politician and replace it with an admirable white woman and they’re complaining about it because it didn’t go far enough?
How can they justify the thought that is an attempt “to corrode and erase the long history of activism by students of color — particularly black women — on this campus”: I don’t see Yale’s motives as that at all.
My politics are somewhat left of center but I detest extremists, both on the left and right.
While the quora comments basically back up @Hunt 's hypothesis, I would hardly call that forum the get go-to site for definitive answers. :)
The announcement of the names for the two new colleges was made last spring concurrent with the decision not to rename Calhoun. The only “new” news is the reversal of the decision not to rename Calhoun.
The New Haven Register, New York Times, New York Magazine and Fortune back up @Hunt’s hypothesis
http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20160428/students-rail-against-yale-over-decision-not-to-rename-calhoun-college
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/nyregion/yale-defies-calls-to-rename-calhoun-college.html
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/yale-wont-rename-calhoun-college.html
http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/yale-calhoun-college/
Interestingly, the official Yale announcement makes no mention of the donation or request
http://news.yale.edu/2016/04/27/yale-retains-calhoun-college-s-name-selects-names-two-new-residential-colleges-and-change
The Yale announcement states:
“Franklin’s brilliance as a scientist, statesman, philosopher, and writer shaped our nation. In adopting his name for one of the new colleges, we honor as well the generosity of Charles B. Johnson ’54 B.A., who considers Franklin a personal role model,” Salovey said. “Mr. Johnson’s contribution to enable the construction of the new colleges is the single largest gift made to Yale. Pauli Murray College and Benjamin Franklin College, which will open Yale’s doors to thousands of additional future students, would not have been possible without his philanthropic vision.”
It seems that the $250,000,000 were donated specifically for the founding of two new colleges and that the donor thought highly of Franklin. The connections seems fairly clear.
I don’t think it’s too surprising that Yale took a big donor’s views into account with the Franklin name - to me, more the surprise is that it wasn’t just called Johnson College. Like Whitman College at Princeton for example.
I think they don’t want to go there, @canoe2015, because it would likely lead to donors offering big gifts on the condition that existing colleges were renamed for them. Princeton’s colleges are relatively new, so there’s little history and no renaming issue. Most of Yale’s colleges have been around since the 1930s and, until now, none has had its name changed.
If Yale did what you suggest, and donors reacted as I think they would, it would look to many alums like their colleges were being sold to the highest bidder, and would effectively concede that every college was renameable, which would guarantee discussion and protests for the foreseeable future. I think the Yale Corporation is ready to move on from that, to put it mildly.
Note, too, that Yale and Stanford are the two tippy-top universities that don’t have one of their subsidiary schools named after a person (no Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, or Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science, for example), which may be for similar reasons.
if it is a new college with a 250 million donation from a single donor, why wouldn’t it be appropriate to have the donor’s name?
Again, because I don’t think they want to go down the road of naming colleges after living donors, since other donors might want a college renamed for them.
They may also want to focus donors elsewhere, since the colleges have all been recently renovated and I doubt Yale is looking to build additional colleges in the near term, with the two new ones opening this fall. In fact, the “renaming principles” that the committee developed may also be useful in directing donors toward other university priorities, since in practice they make it difficult for any college other than Calhoun to be renamed.
Harvard has a different but related issue, in that many of their houses, built around the same time as Yale’s colleges, are in great need of renovation but donors aren’t stepping up because Harvard generally won’t rename houses.
Any chance that Clemson will drop the “Calhoun” name from their Honors College now?
@DeepBlue86 I was talking about Franklin, one of the new colleges funded by Johnson’s gift, not renaming existing colleges.
From what I understand the new colleges were on hold for a good number of years while Yale tried to find a donor who would give a big sum without the name.
I understand, @canoe2015 - I think that there was probably a concern that if the Yale Corporation agreed to name a new college after a donor for $250m, it wouldn’t be so easy to refuse another donor who showed up and said “here’s $100 million; all you have to do is take the name of Samuel Morse, that nasty racist [he was, btw], off Morse College and put mine on.” Then it would be open season, with donors bidding for renaming rights for other colleges, upset alumni who didn’t want college names changed, SJWs who wanted all colleges named after slaveholders renamed after women and members of historically oppressed groups, etc., in arguments without end.
Fortunately, Charlie Johnson didn’t insist on naming rights, and the endowment has surpassed where it stood before the financial crisis (when Yale first started planning for the new colleges), or Yale would have had a tough choice to make. It’s also lucky that Yale is unlikely to want to build more colleges anytime soon, and doesn’t have a lot of deferred maintenance for the existing ones pending.
They should have named it after Cory Menafee–New Havener of the Year
He broke the window depicting slaves picking cotton.
Without him, it would still be called Calhoun
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/new_havener_of_the_year1/
@DeepBlue86 - let’s not make too many generalizations. As an AA female alum who is very tuned into alumni and current students, I know that all of us are pleasantly pleased (and may I say shocked) that our school made the decision to change the name. We understand that we cannot get what we want in all cases, but we absolutely understand the awesomeness of what has occurred. Will there be people who are still not satisfied? Of course. There always are. But let’s not take those voices and let them override what, for most of us, is a major concession and step forward on the part of the University.
Oh, I agree, @Tperry1982, that most people (including some Hounies/Hoppers I know), seem pleased, or at least glad this is over. As you say, though, some are still dissatisfied: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/02/17/chavez-and-wang-it-is-incoherent-to-offer-gender-as-a-substitute-for-race/ .
This being so, my point is that if I were the Yale Corporation, I wouldn’t want to reopen the subject of renaming, and would therefore continue to decline to name colleges after living donors.
@DeepBlue86 - we’re on the same page!!
A university is a diverse community and has thousands of students and faculty members. Ideally, every one of them is endowed with freedom of speech. Naturally, there will be a wide range of opinions; some are smart and some are stupid. When you read an opinion article written by two members of the university, you need to understand that particular view may not be shared by many other students and faculty members. If you generalize an opinion article to the entire community, I think you need to reexamine your critical thinking ability.
By the way, I think Grace Hopper is very good choice. Her skin color is a non-issue.