Harvard Renames Dormitory Over Claims That Namesake Owned Slaves
“The review process began with a 2023 student petition, endorsed by over 1,000 Harvard affiliates.”
Why hasn’t Yale University changed its name? Elihu Yale was a major figure in the slave trade. I ask this question every time this comes up and I’ve never gotten an answer.
The College Fix reports:
Harvard renames dorm over namesake’s slavery ties
Harvard University announced Thursday it will drop the first name of its John Winthrop House, responding to long-standing efforts to separate the undergraduate residence from its namesake, whom historians believe was a slaveowner.
The review process began with a 2023 student petition, endorsed by over 1,000 Harvard affiliates, urging the university to remove the name “John” from Winthrop House, The Harvard Crimson reported.
The decision acted as a compromise between those who wanted “to stop honoring slaveowners” and those wishing “to retain a familiar name at the heart of Harvard’s undergraduate culture,” according to the student newspaper.
The petitioners believed the house was named after both the elder John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his great, great grandson, John Winthrop, a former Harvard president from the 1770s who is also considered the first American astronomer, The College Fix previously reported.
Student protesters argued that because they both supported slavery, their name should be wiped from campus.
However, the review committee’s 35-page report clarified “that the elder John Winthrop was not an official namesake for the House — though the Winthrop House website states that the House is named for two John Winthrops,” according to the Crimson.
The committee avoided determining whether the men’s actions were “sufficient to recommend denaming.” The committee wrote that it “could not agree that the overall legacy of these two men demanded removing their names from the House.”
Instead, it recommended dropping “John” to “respond to Black and Indigenous students who feel alienated by a name they see as honoring the two John Winthrops,” the Crimson reported.
“Professor Winthrop’s place in the naming of the House and his contributions to Harvard and to the scientific community have long been obscured. Because of this, the moral complications in their legacies seemed a more decisive factor,” it wrote.
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Comments
But, they still support Planned Parenthood, even though Sanger established it to practice eugenics and reduce the population of all their favorite victim groups.
She’s not a foundational pillar of Western Civ, though, so her impurities are ok, I guess.
you notice how the left NEVER RENAMED “SLAVES” as a word
In fact, I notice that they DID.
“Slave” is no longer a politically correct word. You “must” now say “enslaved person.”
Now they can pretend it honors Pee-Wee Winthrop.
Yuge proggy success!
“whom historians believe was a slaveowner.”
It’s “who.” Subject of “was.”
Nope. It must be embarrassing to volunteer such a mistake. Here let me explain.
“I was a slaveowner”.
Subject: I
Verb: was
Indirect Object (i.e. Dative): a slaveowner. This takes “whom”, unless you use “who” for everything.
There is no direct object. If it were “I threw a slaveowner.” that would be a direct object and use “who” not whom.
Yale changed the dorm named Calhoun to some other name. I guess Calhoun had slaves. But Yale didn’t change the Yale name because that’s their brand, presumably. And “University of New Haven” was already taken.