College Council at SUNY New Paltz Votes to Rename Dorms Over Slavery Ties
“still must be approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees”
Erasing history in this way is more about power than anything else. The term “Year Zero” comes to mind.
The College Fix reports:
SUNY New Paltz leaders vote to rename dorms named after town’s 17th century settlers, citing slavery
The SUNY New Paltz College Council recently voted 4 to 3 to rename six buildings on campus named after New Paltz founders who fled Europe from the French Monarchs’ religious persecution to the New World, subsequently establishing the town in exodus during the 17th century.
The decision caused at least one of the council members who voted against renaming the buildings to resign, stating “the doctrines of racial victimhood and bloodguilt that we are being asked to endorse implicitly today strike at the very heart of [the] American idea.”
But those in favor of the name changes say the buildings honor the six families who were the first European settlers in New Paltz in 1678, and that research has found the “earliest generations of these families” owned slaves.
SUNY New Paltz President Donald Christian is a staunch supporter of the name change effort, which still must be approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees, a decision expected to made this spring or summer.
A President’s Report on the issue remarked that “the nation and its organizations have a long history of decisions that consider primarily (or solely) the perspectives of white America, or that favor or benefit white people.”
On a more personal note, it added that “wrestling with this issue for President Christian has been a case study of white privilege, which the President knows he has benefited from in his life.” Others support the initiative because of its general commitment to “remediating past and current inequities.”
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Comments
If their goal is to eradicate all associations with slavery, eventually they’ll have to abolish the Democratic party.
Why stop with slavery? Everybody’s been a jerk at some point.
Rename every building, but use numbers only. Even colors may offend. And tear down every statue and every piece of artwork, after all, what doesn’t offend you offends me – I just don’t whine like a baby. And burn all books, if it’s not offensive text, the authors or publishers or folks ordering the books have offended someone, sometime, somewhere. Hell, burn down the school! And deaf, dumb and blind . . . .
Their taking offense offends me
They have a larger problem. New Paltz is a village settled by the French. The French were bigger slave traders than the British and Americans combined and shipped over 3 times as many slaves to the French West Indies than to America. They were considered the most brutal slave traders of all the European countries. I can’t see how they change the dorm names and not the name of the college.