The Hypocrisy behind the Student-Renaming Craze

[Geee]

National Review:

 

University students across the country — at Amherst, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UC–Berkeley, and dozens of other campuses — are caught up in yet another new fad.

This time, the latest college craze is a frenzied attempt to rename campus buildings and streets. Apparently some of those names from the past do not fit students’ present litmus tests on race, class, and gender correctness.

 

Stanford students are demanding the rebranding of buildings, malls, and streets bearing the name of Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Franciscan priest who some 250 years ago founded California’s famous chain of 21 coastal missions. The sainted Serra was often unkind to Native Americans and by our standards racist in his worldview.

 

Harvard is ditching its law school’s seal because it is based on the coat of the arms of the Isaac Royal family. Isaac Royal Jr. donated his estate to create Harvard’s first law professorship, but he and his family owned slaves, so apparently that cancels out his philanthropy.

 

For students, politically incorrect actions in politically incorrect eras mean that otherwise-generous historical figures have to be judged as bad in all aspects — at least by 21st-century standards. But why the sudden nationwide-renaming frenzy — and how is it any different from other campus fads?