Yale University President Peter Salovey Monday reopened the door to possibly renaming Calhoun College, which is named for infamous slavery proponent John C. Calhoun.
Salovey announced in an email to the Yale community the formation of a “Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming,” which will establish ground principles “to guide the university’s decisions on proposals to remove a historical name” from campus buildings or areas.
He noted particularly that the name of John C. Calhoun could be reconsidered, despite a decision last April to keep the name of the college.
“After these principles have been articulated and disseminated, we will be able to hold requests for the removal of a historical name — including that of John C. Calhoun — up to them,” Salovey wrote in the email.
The announcement follows an embarrassing episode for Yale involving Calhoun College and race: the university police arrested — on a felony charge — Calhoun dining hall worker Corey Menafee after he broke a stained glass panel depicting slaves carrying bales of cotton. After an initial story published in the Independent brought the case to national attention, community activists, student groups, and Yale faculty rallied behind the worker, and the university asked a state prosecutor to stop pursuing the charges brought by Yale University police. Menafee’s case was nolled; and Yale rehired the worker after he had “resigned” under pressure.
Community members said protests will not stop until the University decides to change the Calhoun name. At a rally last Tuesday, activists temporarily “changed” the name of Calhoun College to Douglass College, after abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
“We are changing [the name] to Douglass now, as a community, until Yale decides to do it,” John Lugo of Unidad Latina en Acción said at the rally. He said his group and other activists will rally at the corner of College and Elm every Friday until the Calhoun name is officially changed.
New Haven Mayor Toni Harp has also called for renaming Calhoun College.
If Salovey needs to form committee after committee to figure out what's right on this, maybe he shouldn't be President of such a prestigious university.
Following the attention brought to this issue, right now Calhoun College is essentially "Slavemaster Suites". Yale University is seemingly okay with forcing blacks to live and work in a dormitory named in honor of someone who laid the groundwork for secession and the Civil War, and who argued that the Negros were better off as a slave race? That defies basic sensibilities, -- all in the name of what? History? Tradition? (some of the same arguments that kept the Confederate flag flying above the South Carolina statehouse, although notably even that ultimately changed.)
What is Yale really clinging to here? The money from old, racist alumni? A stubbornness that believes renaming a college that was built in 1931 would be tantamount to erasing the past? (as if this country might forget the stain of slavery.) Honestly, what awful consequences might follow a compassionate re-dedication of the dorm, in honor of someone who was not the extreme racist Calhoun was?
In any case, this controversy isn't going away. And if Salovey can't muster the leadership to do the right thing, the continued controversy might end up being his most remembered legacy.