Harvard Law School Votes To Change Its Symbol From Slave-Owning Family Crest

Harvard Law School officials voted Monday to adopt a lower committee’s recommendation to strip a slave-owning family’s crest as its symbol, The Chicago Tribune reported.

The school’s decision comes as other universities and towns have removed monuments and other recognition of historical leaders who had ties to slavery.

Harvard Law School’s symbol, used for 80 years, was an adaptation of the family crest of Isaac Royall Jr., who endowed Harvard’s first law professor position and whose family owned slaves. The university later added the three sheaves of wheat, according to the Tribune.

“We cannot choose our history but we can choose that for which we stand,” Harvard Law Dean Martha Minow wrote, according to the report. “Above all, we rededicate ourselves to the hard work of eradicating not just symbols of injustice but injustice itself.”

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  1. Did they also vote to return the original bequest? With compound interest, of course.

  2. Cruz: Sad to see that my alma mater not respecting white heritage. They should consider Confederate Flag as the replacement.

  3. They should vote to return the bequest to the descendants of the slave-owning benefactor – just as soon as the descendants of the slave-owning benefactor pay reparations, with compound interest of course, to all the descendants of his slaves. But I wouldn’t advise anyone to hold their breath. :wink:

  4. Ted Cruz sues Harvard in 4…3…2…

  5. Friendly rival Princeton offered to create a new crest with the phrase: “Harvard delenda est.”

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