Harvard renaming signifies historical revisionism

Harvard recently decided that a long-held tradition, referring to heads of undergraduate residences as “masters,” would be discontinued. The decision was made by a unanimous vote by the masters of the residences and had been a topic under consideration for “a while.” This was due, in part, to the masters reacting to the concerns of students who were made uncomfortable by the use of a title ostensibly tied to slavery. Similar changes have been demanded at other Ivy League colleges, culminating in a discontinuation of similar titles at Princeton and debate at Yale.

While the word “master” was undoubtedly used at a time when people could be considered property, the use of the term in Harvard’s setting stems from a centuries-old European tradition that has little relation to American slavery. The use of a word so linked to slavery in the United States is unfortunate. The link is, however, anything but intentional. The medieval-era term conveys a very different meaning in the Ivy League’s historical and traditional context than students at those schools infer. The term was traditionally used to mean “teacher,” not to infer ownership. A master in Harvard’s context is charged with taking care of residents and administrative duties. Lack of awareness of historical context and intent is a hallmark of contemporary student movements at universities around the country, and student pressure causes university administrations to make hasty decisions in order to placate demands in the short term.

Student demands like these are important — if an issue is noteworthy enough to elicit outcry among students, it probably deserves careful re-evaluation by university administrators. What is equally important, though, is making a sound argument that is fair to the subject of one’s criticism. That means taking history, symbols and even titles in context and understanding their meaning as defined by those charged with upholding and explaining them. If a student organization makes an impassioned rhetorical argument, but goes out of its way to reinterpret history to fit its narrative, that is an example of historical revisionism. Historical revisionism has no place in the academy and should be vehemently spurned.

For example, Harvard students calling themselves “Royall Must Fall” demanded Harvard Law School’s seal be changed because it “represents and endorses a slaveholding legacy.” It is true that Harvard Law School’s seal is linked to the Royall family, who owned slaves. It is also true that the Royall family was banished from Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War, risking death if they were to return. The land they previously inhabited was left to Harvard in accordance with Isaac Royall Jr.’s will when he died in exile in 1781, and the land was used to create Harvard Law School more than 30 years later in 1817. Harvard Law School then adopted the Royall’s coat-of-arms in recognition of their donation. The fact that this school had a black graduate as early as 1869 named George Lewis Ruffin, who went on to become the first black judge in the Royall’s home state, speaks for itself. Clearly, the claim that Harvard endorses slavery is far more attenuated than some student activists would like to believe that it is.

Instead of primarily targeting real issues that would substantially affect the quality of student life, such as faculty and student diversity and adjunct faculty working conditions, student groups in prominent universities across the country are choosing to wage a poorly supported war on symbols and inconveniences rather than on tangible, mutable policies that have real impact. Attempting to change and reinterpret benign age-old traditions and symbols only serves to stifle opportunities for dialogue. It also serves to tarnish the names of people who, although advanced for their time, do not fit rather Puritan contemporary conceptions of morality.

“Royall Must Fall” claims that “imagery from a slaveholding era has no place” at Harvard. This is a deeply unnerving belief, since it holds that all collegiate traditions, symbols and titles established or practiced before the 13th Amendment’s passage ought to be spurned based solely on their time period of origin. Such an argument does not hold up under even cursory scrutiny, and to acquiesce to it would leave Ivy League schools devoid of their heritage, culture and worst of all, critical dialogue about those topics. This not to say that student outcry and debate over these topics is useless. It is important to acknowledge the flaws of human beings throughout history and to learn from their mistakes. Obscuring the benefits gained from their legacies or changing cherished hallmarks of college culture and history, however, does no one any good.