Yale Wipes VP’s Name from Residential College Due to Slaveholder Past

Yale University has officially cut ties with residential college namesake John Calhoun, a former United States Vice President, due to his historical advocacy for slavery.

John Calhoun, the Seventh Vice President of the United States, has been removed as the namesake of a residential college at Yale University, a name it had born since its inception in 1933. The former Calhoun College has been renamed in honor of computer pioneer and United States Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper after concerns arose last semester over Calhoun’s historical advocacy for slavery.

According to a report from the New York Times, some students are energized by the change of the college’s name. “I think for a lot of people this summer has shown that it’s sort of beyond this ivory tower intellectual debate,” Maya Jenkins, a Hopper College senior said. A backlash erupted in 2016 after Yale University President Peter Salovey announced that Calhoun would remain the namesake of the college. “Universities have to be the places where tough conversations happen,” he said at the time. “I don’t think that is advanced by hiding our past.”

But despite the excitement, Jenkins says the change is not enough, simply because, Hopper, a woman, isn’t black. “The college being renamed after a white woman does not fully rectify the violences of Calhoun’s legacy,” Jenkins said in an email. Yale University opened a new residential hall this semester named after black Yale Law School alumna and civil rights leader, Anna Pauline Murray.

Despite the changes, Calhoun has yet to be entirely erased from Yale’s campus. His name and likeness remain carved into the main entranceway above on the main Calhoun College building. And an eight-foot statue of Calhoun still surveys Yale’s campus from the top of the university’s Harkness Tower.

A small minority of students claim that they are sad to see Calhoun’s name removed from the college. Lauren Lee, a sophomore in Hopper College, claims that Calhoun’s legacy to political theory overshadows the darker parts of his history. “For me it will always in a sense be Calhoun,” Lee said.